The Expecting Mockingjay
by Tare-Bear
Summary: Sequel to CFABD* Captured by the Capitol after the 75th Hunger Games, Katniss wishes more than anything to be dead. She must choose between being the Capitol's Mockingjay or the rebels. While at the same time, being overcome by Snow's threats and an inevitable war, there's nothing but her will to save the last thing she has left: hers and Peeta's unborn child.
1. Chapter One

_**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

_A/N: First of all, I just want to say this will probably be the only chapter with familiar material, seeing as this is the only place that Katniss visits in both the original Mockingjay and my version of this story. I apologize if you've already read ahead and this is __old to you. All I can tell you is I've changed the ending of this chapter a bit. And to those who have read this story before it was deleted; it'll be different in many ways. Maybe not as vastly as Catching Fire and Burning Down, but different. Better development. Maturer. Thanks for reading. Sorry for typos. Reviews are updates. (Please tell me if you think Katniss is not Katniss!) -Taryn(:_

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Chapter One

I stare down in the vain hope that somehow I'll see my shoes and watch as a fine layer of ash settles on the worn leather. Instead, my sight is blocked off by the bulge in my abdomen. Somewhere, down there, remains of the bed I once shared with my sister, Prim, stirs among the other crumpled pieces of home. Over there was the kitchen table. The bricks of the chimney, which collapsed in a charred heap, provide a point of reference for the rest of the house. How else could I orient myself in this sea of gray?

Almost nothing remains of District 12. Two months ago, the Capitol's firebombs obliterated the poor coal miners' houses in the Seam, the shops in the town, even the Justice Building. The only area that escaped incineration was the Victor's Village. I don't know why exactly. Perhaps so anyone forced to come here on Capitol business would have somewhere decent to stay. The odd reporter. A committee assessing the condition of the coal mines. A squad of Peacekeepers checking for returning refugees.

At the thought of them I lift my chin. Eyes seeking the familiar blinding white uniform of those who hover around me at every hour of the day. One of my guards is kicking over a pile of fire-ravished logs, and they crumble from the inside out in a whirl of chipping mulch. Another, the closest one to me, meets my gaze and returns it with a sneer. He's a tall man, but his face is plain, hidden behind a face-protecting plate of plastic. A gun, slung around his shoulders, is repositioned. I know though, what that meant, the message is clear, as if he has shouted the words aloud. _Don't even think about it. _

Where would I go? No one is returning. Not with two Capitol hovercrafts hanging over our heads, and the sum of nearly twenty Peacekeepers circling the grounds surrounding me. District 13 may not even know we're here at all. Might not even consider the thought that Snow would ever let me venture so far from his lair. They would view this as a costly and pointless journey, given the amount of effort my guard must show and that there's absolutely no intelligence to be gained.

Before actually seeing this new world, that is now the District 12 I used to know, I had thought it would help me. To see home again might give me some strength to draw from. I made it a condition of me aiding Snow. That is how much I had wanted to visit District 12, if only to see something familiar. Instead, I stand among a gray unmoving sea, knowing... _I did this. I killed them.._

After the initial wave of guilt, hatred swarms to take its place and I recall the smile on Snow's face when I requested to be brought here. I had been confused about it, uncertain if this was a trap. And now I know.

He _wanted_ me to see. Would have forced me here, eventually, if I hadn't intervened. The words he spoke are clear in my mind, ringing with that tone of utter authority he got when he knows he's just won. _"Fine, I'll let you go,"_ Snow told me. _"A little sun exposure will do you good, and walking, for the baby, too." _

The way he brought up the child in every conversation angered me. He did it to remind me of the things he holds over my head. The same way he used to do that to me before the Quarter Quell, concerning Gale and my family.

Thinking of them now, a pain livens at the base of my skull and I press my hand against it. It's right on the spot where I'd violently hit the water, head first, Enorbaria's hands clawing at my shoulders. The memories swirl as I try to sort out what is true and what is false. What series of events led me to be standing in the ruins of my home? The harder I tried to recall everything, the more the effects of the concussion the fall gave me rear their ugly head and jumble together any memories and thoughts. Also, the drugs they use to hype my hormones and lessen my pain have a tendency to makes me see things.

I'm not entirely convinced that I was hallucinating the night the floor of my hospital room transformed into a carpet of snakes. Who knows what Snow is doing to frighten me into submission?

Most often when I have to question myself, I use a technique one of the doctors suggested. I start with the simplest things I know to be true and work toward the more complicated. On instinct, the list begins to roll in my head...

_My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am seventeen years old. My home is District 12. I was in the Hunger Games. I escaped. The Capitol hates me, wants to use me. Peeta's somewhere in District 13. I'm four months pregnant. President Snow likes to feel it kick... _

"Are you ready to go home, Miss Everdeen?" A soft male voice reaches me through the headset around my ears. They had to wrestle me in it, because I could not stand the thought of the Head Peacekeeper up in a hovercraft chattering away into my ears. I know he's watching me carefully, ready to swoop in if anything goes amiss and I realize I'm crouched down, elbows on the slope of my abdomen, my head braced between my hands. I must look on the verge of some kind of breakdown. Just what Snow may be wanting. This won't do. Not when it'll fulfill something on their morbid little checklist.

I straighten up and wave his offer away. "No. I'm fine." To reinforce this, I begin to move away from my old house and in toward the town. I stumble slightly, though, on my way past the threshold and one of the Peacekeepers around the area jerks forward to steady me. Once I shove away his gloved hand, he scoffs, and my teeth grit in frustration, overly aware of every step I make. I'm so awkwardly pregnant now that graceful, silent movements that my body's always achieved are completely unattainable.

It's not just that fact that upsets me. More of it has to do with the mere act of the Peacekeepers being there at all. They don't understand. I don't want anyone with me today. Not even a friend. Some walks you have to take alone.

The summer's been scorching hot and dry as a bone. There's been next to no rain to disturb the piles of ash left by the attack. They shift here and there, in reaction to my footsteps. No breeze to scatter them. I keep my eyes on what I remember as the road, because when I first landed in the Meadow, I wasn't careful and I walked right into a rock. Only it wasn't a rock–it was someone's skull. It rolled over and over and landed face-up, and for a long time I couldn't stop looking at the teeth, wondering whose they were, thinking of how mine would probably look the same under similar circumstances.

I stick to the road out of habit, but it's a bad choice, because it's full of the remains of those who tried to flee. Some were incinerated entirely. But others, probably overcome with smoke, escaped the worst of the flames and now lie reeking in various states of decomposition, carrion for scavengers, blanketed by flies.

_I killed you, _I think as I pass a pile. _And you. And you. _

Because I did. It was me that brought on this firestorm of retribution. That sent the whole country of Panem in chaos. In my head I hear President Snow's words, spoken the morning I was to begin the Victory Tour. _"Katniss Everdeen, the girl who was on fire, you have provided a spark that, left unattended, may grow to an inferno that destroys Panem." _It turns out he wasn't exaggerating or simply trying to scare me. He was, then, perhaps, genuinely attempting to enlist my help. But I had already set something in motion that I had no ability to control. And even though he's got me at the end of his rope now, there isn't anything I think I could do to stop it.

Before I even reach town, I'm panting from the effort it is to haul around all the new weight I've gained. I pause to span a hand across my stomach. The baby's moving... stretching actually, the doctors tell me. I close my eyes. There is no longer an image of a little girl, with Peeta's blue eyes, because the longer I spend in the Capitol's clutches, the more my memory of his face seems to fade. In the place of the child is something far less cute and far less loved.

It has become a parasite, of some sort. Over the weeks I've grown larger and larger, my shoulders beginning to slope with the load it is on me. Since I starved the fetus for days, almost weeks, during the first trimester they say it's better to heap on mounds of nutrients and proteins now, that, surely, the fetus must be craving. Already I've been told I'm bigger than any normal women whose four months pregnant. My waist has thickened in anticipation for the birth, my breasts are bigger than I ever thought they could be and my thighs have pinches of skin that weren't there before, which makes me wonder, _how does any woman get around like this? Who would willingly become this ungainly... and more than once, at that?_

Hunting like this would be impossible, I know. And if I truly knew where to go in an attempt to escape from the Peacekeepers, I know that I won't get far because running would be difficult and diving to avoid capture makes me think of the back pain that would inevitably result.

All the thought of how trapped I am makes me feel restless. In the past month I've been awake after my three months pause of action from escaping the arena I have had little time to move about. So much time spent idle. Too much. It's hard to wrap my head around. Four months, since I last saw that one glimpse of Peeta's terrified, helpless face. Four months, since I saw Johanna thrown over the edge of the cliff by Gloss' powerful legs. Four months, since I've seen Finnick, the tribute who I'd originally mistrusted, now consider some sort of friend. And longest of all, four months, since I've seen my family. One long month of wondering if Prim and my mother and the Hawthornes are all dead; because of me.

At the reminder of them I start up the walk again, sweat clinging to my skin like a second layer of clothing. A slight discomforting twinge runs along my groin in protest. President Snow's suggestion to walk hangs in the back of my mind. He must know I don't get up much when strapped to a hospital bed.

Without knowing it, my feet come to a place I know well. There, right at the tips of my toes, should be an apple tree. The same apple tree that sprouted out of the ground a few yards from the bakery's back door. Shudders work their way throughout my body when I turn, unbidden memories roaring up to the surface of my mind. I feel suddenly like I just can't do this, or be here.

It was so simple, then. Even if I was starving, struggling for life and my father had been taken from me. All that was preferred to now with the country in chaos. Never did I dream as a girl that I would someday wake every morning to President Snow and to see his hands grappling at my bulging stomach, as if I were some incubator growing inside me his hopes and dreams. The constant stream of plans he's trying to force upon me, usually choke me, because most of them involve actions that'll hurt my fellow rebels.

Embarrassed by the sudden urge to break into tears, I cover my mouth to hold the in sobs that rock throughout my ribcage and shake my chest. Pregnancy has my emotions out of line, making them seem stronger, everything constantly covered in a layer of dread. Sometimes I feel things that I don't think are truly rational. I know I could have handled this entrapment better if I felt more like myself. But everywhere I turn there is an unfamiliar face, places I've never been, and I must walk it alone. I'm alone. So alone. There is no one with me but the kid. And it's on _their_ side.

It hurts me more than anything. I grow weaker and more vulnerable each day, and it uses my body for itself. They use it to manipulate me. I may have not come accustomed to it yet, like I thought might happen, like my mother once said to Prim when my little sister had gotten curious about babies and where they come from. With that old delusion striped from my eyes I do not aspire or force myself to grow affectionate of it. Yet, still, I can not bare to harm it. No one can win in this situation; not me, not the child. Only President Snow.

With a new sense of hopelessness I trudge further down the path behind the bakery, cutting through a building that I once knew as a flower shop, until the surface beneath my feet hardens, and under the carpet of ash, I feel the paving stones of the square. Surrounding the perimeter is blackened rubble where the shops stood and a large heap signifying where the Justice Building had once towered.

I walk further out, then find myself, inevitability, at the front of the bakery Peeta's family owned this time. Nothing much left but the melted lumps of the oven. All I can feel for a moment is satisfaction. _No more closet. _Then, did Peeta's family make it? Does he have someone looking after him? I wonder if they blame me. Me, Katniss Everdeen, the Mockingjay, that wrecked their homes. That ripped away the lives of people they knew and, possibly, loved.

Snow didn't say how many survived, yet, he said District 13 intervened at some point after the attack. It would be impossible to pick through the remains and try to find the corpses of my family, or the Hawthornes, so I stand here, wondering if I have also slaughtered all those I loved.

The citizens of District 12 didn't deserve this. No one in their ranks organized a rebellion, not truly. They only had the misfortune to have homed me. They'll probably never forgive me. And I don't blame them, because I find it exhausting being myself.

There are many buildings in town that still have their basic concrete structures showing and I examine their blackened, flame licked surfaces on my passing toward the mayor's home. I remember suddenly a time in training when Beetee and Wiress inquired about my home district. I had told them I knew nothing about town, really, and now I think that's wrong. I knew plenty...

Like the butcher, who would pay me handsomely for no more than a fresh rabbit, when it came down to it. He had a son, I remember, who I had not known well, but he could not have been much older than Rory. Prim's friend from school, the daughter of the miller, used to have a stray cat that followed her around the way Buttercup had followed Prim... I wondered now, where those two little beasts went off to, as I scan the grounds. Were they mourning the death of those two little girls that were their own, or had they wailed and burned just like everyone else?

What was left of the Undersee's house seemed worse than the rest. I squatted down to run my fingers through the piles of black specks, and roused dust, that I sucked in and being hacking. I stood back up to move away from the complete havoc. Were they all dead? Madge? Mr. Undersee? His poor, sickly wife who lost her twin so long ago?

I mulled over where my Mockingjay pin had went. Did Snow take it? Or was it dropped, forever lost within the arena that I never mean to return to? That means no matter to me, because I hate what it represents now, but I keep thinking that it was a gift. A gift from Madge, something I never paid her back for. Now, she's most likely gone, thanks to me and I'm left thinking that maybe Madge really has been my friend all along.

With heavy footsteps I approach the road, ignoring the bodies, and find myself in the untouched Victor's Village. There is my house and Haymitch's directly across from each other, but they both looked so unlived in. Cold, unused, unloved... empty shells that went with our empty titles; victors. Peeta's stands next to mine, when I passed mine I never so much as raised the thought of entering but now I wonder... and I find myself twisting the knob of his front door before the Peacekeepers behind me can object. I open it, turn, lock it, and listen to them pounding at the wood furiously before I shoot up the stairs.

It's cooler inside, away from the sun and sweltering heat of this summer. Like drinking a glass of iced water. There is a smell of bread, embroidered into the house's walls, too, from his constant baking, and when I close my eyes, ignored the sound of my guard, it feels like none of it ever happened. No Quarter Quell, no failed escape, just _this. _

"Katniss," the headset sounds, in a burst of static, "if you don't unlock the door, I'll order them to shoot it open. Snow has given specific orders not to let you out of sight."

"I'll only be a minute," I say, climbing higher up the stairs, clutching the hand rail. "I'm not doing anything wrong.."

Head Peacekeeper sighs. "How do I know you are not lying?"

"You don't," I tell him, honest, and there's no further comment. A few minutes later, the knocking has stopped.

I'm standing in front of Peeta's closed bedroom door, when I finally make the courage to open it. Part of me hoped fleetingly that maybe he could be in there, waiting to rescue me, to take me to District 13 and to see my family, but all I see is his neatly made bed, the cluttered surroundings of easels and scattered paintings, papers filling most of the walls of various Game related grotesque scenes. Soft, dim sunlight illuminates the white curtain pulled closed over his bedroom window and the streams fall across the paint splattered floor and sprawls on top of the sheets of his bed.

I hesitate only a moment before I move to sit on the edge of the bed. One of my hands move across the top blanket slowly, and I sigh. I don't know what to do, anymore. I want to deny President Snow everything he asks, but I want my child safe. _But you're safe, _I think. _Peeta. _

Are the rebels, now, as I speak, plotting someway to rescue me? Is he urging them on? And if they aren't and he can't help me, "What am I going to do?" It comes out no more than whisper, because I really don't know.

Snow keeps talking at me, talking, talking, talking. Tells me his plans to rally up the Capitol first, and his desire to have me on air, telling the country it's all a mistake. A few mismatch threats to the child and taunts about the possibility of my dead loved ones. That locket he keeps in his pocket, never allowing me to hold, but swinging at me whenever possible.

That is enough to drive anyone mad.

Hours later, when the sun hangs low on the horizon, they find me, buried underneath the blankets, holding a framed picture of him and his family to my chest.

"Come on," says one of my guard, taking me roughly by the upper arm. His strength outweighs my own and he pulls me from the bed effortlessly. One of them takes the picture from my hands, as he begins to drag me towards the door. There's no use resisting. No reason I should stay longer and agonize my conscience, so I let them take me outside, and toward the landed hovercraft in the center of the Meadow.

I know what they really want me to do is become the Mockingjay. Embrace the title. Be the symbol of the rebellion, than harshly reverse its purpose. Claim all that it should be, not just some girl in the arena with berries who defied the Capitol. Become the leader, the face, the voice, the embodiment... then correct it. Control everything, gather in the rebels, and tear them down. Leave them with nothing as they initially rip apart their own districts in protest to the Capitol.

I don't want to, of course. If anything this rebellion may just be what I need. To keep my child safe in the long run. Enable me to actually have a life once this mess clears up. That is, if it does clear up.

A sunset sits against the tops of the trees beyond District 12. The sight of it brings the remembrance of District 3 in rebellion violently back to life.

Somehow the citizens found out I had been kept within their Justice Building, and this snapped whatever hesitation they'd been holding to beforehand, even after their first revolt. This one was worse. I remember the way the machine guns rounded off, repeatedly banging. Banging like a fist beating against my mind. The way bullets tore apart people's chests. Alcohol bottles that were set afire and thrown through the Justice Building's windows.

The worst part was when we were evacuated. Head Peacekeeper Leon, the person who dictates me the most, rounded up a hovercraft and shuffled me out the back of the building. It was only a small glimpse between the figures of the men forming my path, and my eyes were streaming with the smoke that chocked the atmosphere, as the district I had at first thought colorless and serene, turned into a world of fire, destruction, and hate. A wild, insane cry of a man had drawn my eyes towards the back of the square initially, where Peacekeepers were tying peoples hands, shoving their faces heedlessly into a brick wall, then sending rounds of bullets into their backs.

Didn't matter anymore, who or what they were. Any person without the daring white Peacekeeper uniforms were being pushed against the back wall, standing over the bloodied corpse of the last victim. All sizes and shape. Of all ages. I recall a small girl, with black braided pigtails and small, skinny arms. She was forced to her knees, sobbing, the barrel of a gun pressed into her forehead.

_And it was me who killed her. _All of them. Even if I didn't pull the trigger. I didn't have to pull that trigger to kill them. All I had to do was exist. The Mockingjay. Never had I loathed a title so much, and still, I don't hate it as much as I hate myself.

I should have died in that arena. The Capitol fished me out, though, with Johanna and Enorbaria. Johanna I haven't seen more than once or twice and each time seems to be different. Her state growing worse, and her bruised face increasingly battered. The only thing she gives me is a look of regret, and no words, not even a few curses. Everything she worked for in that arena was in vain. All those times she and Finnick, and the other victors, saved me in that arena was for nothing.

Enorbaria was never in District 3 with Johanna and me, she went straight to the Capitol. She's never been on my mind much and I've only see her once, when she was talking to Snow. From what I've gathered she's not against them, but it's not like she's taking up a gun against the rebels at the moment, either. I didn't have time to ponder her position much after District 3's riot. From that point on, since the time it took to move Johanna and I into the undergrounds of President Snow's mansion, Snow's efforts to turn me increased overbearingly.

To say the least Johanna, Enorbaria, and I aren't living the luxury life. I know those taken by the rebels are better off. Peeta, of course, must be safe. Not happy, but safe. I can't know what they'll use him for, but I have a feeling that they'll figure out what a good mouthpiece he is soon enough. Beetee, the older inventor from District 3, must be a beneficial addition to the rebels weapons. He's very smart and very willing to help the cause, but not really firebrand material.

Then there's Finnick Odair, the sex symbol from the fishing district, whose hope nearly outshone everyone elses in that arena. They'll want to transform Finnick into a rebel leader as well, but for some reason there hasn't been any show in the last four months from him. Or anyone. The rebels are silent, laying in wait. Only the regular districts revolt. District 9, I hear, is lost to the Capitol. President Snow is hoping the people of District 13 have been discouraged already by the mere fact that they failed to obtain me. The other and weaker districts will fall in time, without their help. Head Peacekeeper Leon on the other hand isn't so whimsical and never neglects to point out how determined that may make them in the alternative.

I'm in the hovercraft, feet dragging over the metal, walking over to the window to watch as the district grows smaller the higher we get. When it's just a blur of trees, I turn away, tearing the headpiece from my face. The last wisps of hope that the rebels would somehow take advantage of my return to the hot, devastated district evaporates.

Instead, Leon straightens in his captain's seat, and I instantly take in the white of his uniform and the gun slung along his back. Lights from the control panel seated before him illuminates the underside of his jaw and the wide brim of his hat, leaving his eyes in shadow. It makes him seem empty, obedient and hollow. A playing piece.

The others of my guard stumble out the control room, fanning their faces with their hands, glad to be let out of the sun and my range. I slip over to my designated seat beside the Head Peacekeeper. There's a tremble running in my hands that I'm helpless to stop, and I watch the sun dip into night out the hovercraft's pilot window passively.

"Any other stops you'd like to make?" Leon asks after minutes of thunderous silence.

The control lights flicker. He's taunting me; cruelly and just after I've left the remains of my home behind. My family could have been in that mess of gray. Yet, he is so skilled at doing it, without show or drama, I can see why a man so young can get a job as important as watching the Mockingjay. His voice is cultured, low, patient, and even if you look at him more closely there is no trace of evidence giving away to his tease.

"No," I say. "This was enough."

"Enough to convince you the rebellion needs to be stopped?" he retorts.

I force myself to stay calm. If anything this has made me hate the Capitol more. I will with every fiber of my being that it'll fall. Before _I'm_ forced into action. My instinct warns me to cooperate with Leon just enough that I wouldn't bring more trouble on myself or on the baby. At the same time, I want nothing more than to unleash my frustration on him.

As I sit straighter, I realize my whole arm is shaking now, both of them, and I hide them behind my back. I don't reply to Leon and he sighs heavily. To my surprise, he sets the hovercraft on autopilot, takes the gun strap off his shoulder, ducking his head beneath it, and props the thing against the control panel. It's almost as if he were showing a sign of defeat, or exhaustion, as if some innate courtesy is overriding his formal training. Or he's deliberately manipulating me to try to put me more at ease.

I haven't spent much time with Head Peacekeeper Leon. I know he was in charge of District 3 before the riot. Beginning from the point in time President Snow had been called away for more important business in the Capitol, rather than being stuck dealing with resisting me, it was then Leon was given the unfortunate task of making sure I didn't get myself killed or managed to escape.

"How are you feeling?" Leon asks. I glance up at him, noting his straight nose and brown hair cut in the neat military style; short in back and a bit longer over the forehead. I don't know what I hate more, the way _he_ speaks or the others who spoke to me with pity and hatred.

"Fine." Not fine. I need to escape. Then I realize how levelheaded I am, the morphine I'd taken before the trip is dulling, causing the emotions to be sharper and vivid. I felt like doubling over with loss. For everything; Peeta, Prim, Gale, Mother, my home. "Dizzy," I add, in hope it'll mean drugs are the first thing given to me upon arriving back in the Capitol.

One of his arms swings around the back of his seat, and when it comes out, he's holding out a rag. It's not clean, but he's tossing it onto the edge of my chair, urging its use. "You're sweating."

I wipe my face with it, glad for the excuse to hide my expression. Despite his gentle tone and considerate manners, I felt deceived by him. He's the Capitol through and through. A child that grew up there, trained to hate the districts and think us savage and uncivil people who deserve to die in the Hunger Games. Even more, a Peacekeeper, who whips those he decides deserve it.

He can't be older than nineteen. Twice, if not three, times younger than others within my Peacekeeper entourage. But there was something about his voice and manner that spoke peremptory control. I have the distinct feeling Snow left me with him on purpose. Not only does he have an abiding way of voiding my barbs, but he's so sincere with his want for me to reverse the rebellions effect on Panem, sometimes, I almost want to help.

Then, at those moments where I almost give in, I realize how heavily sedated I am, or how much I should fear him. His gun may not be pointed at me, but it's there. Always there and ready to be used by his trained hands do to so. How much fight can a seventeen year old pregnant girl really put up?

Part of me wishes I could have stayed in District 12 a bit longer. Visit my own victor house, collect a few remembrances. Something of my mothers old possessions. Maybe even one of Prim's hair ribbons. But what's the point? They'll only remind me of them, their loss. _What am I going to do? _

Is there any point in doing anything at all? My mother, my sister, and Gale's family could, for all I know, be dead already, which is irreversible. If they are alive, than they have to be safe and protected by District 13. Leaving me with no worry for them at all. That leaves the rebels in the districts. Of course, I hate the Capitol, but I have no confidence that my being the _Capitol's_ Mockingjay will benefit those who are trying to bring it down.

How can I help the districts when I'm trapped? When every time I make a move, it results in suffering and loss of life? The old man shot in District 11 for whistling. The crackdown in 12 after I intervened in Gale's whipping. My stylist, Cinna, being dragged, bloody and unconscious, from the Launch Room before the Games. Brilliant, enigmatic, lovely Cinna could be dead because of me. I push the thought away because it's too impossibly painful to dwell on without losing my fragile hold on the situation entirely.

_What am I going to do? _

To become the Capitol's Mockingjay... could any good come from it? Would it only double the damage I've already done? Who can I trust? No one in the Capitol. Not Snow. _Never_ Snow. No Peacekeepers. The deceptive Leon isn't an option, no matter how gentle he seems. Other than the doctors those are the only people I've been permitted to seeing. Could Johanna forgive me long enough to talk to her, if the option were ever opened?

I swear, now that everyone I care for is either dead or safe within District 13, I could die almost happy. Except for one unfinished piece of business. The child. If I knew for sure that I wouldn't end up a murderer, of a child, _Peeta's child _no less, and that I wouldn't become no better than President Snow himself, I would somehow throw myself at this control panel and crash this hovercraft here and now. But that's what stalls my hand: the child.

Before any really plan forms in my head a beeping sound starts to emit from Leon. My hand begins to twitch again, a strange feeling creeping up the back of my neck. Leon picks up a small device, presses a few things and holds it up to his ear.

After a few moments, to whoever is on the other side of communication, Leon says, "No, of course. She's fine."

_Am I? Really?_ Almost as if he heard my thoughts, Leon's piercing green eyes flash to mine. He's overlooking my persona. "No... nothing that I see," he says in the phone.

"What?" I snap, when he still doesn't look away.

"You didn't take anything with you, did you?" he asks me.

"No."

One of his eyebrows arches. "You're certain? I don't want to have to search you."

"What are you afraid I took?" I say in response, but it doesn't matter because he's suddenly standing and sweeping out of the room, talking quietly and quickly into his communicator.

Logically I don't see what he, and whoever it is he's speaking to, are so worried about. I suppose it's possible that I may have picked up some rebel microphone or spying instrumentation. Though, how could I ever organize something like that? Especially if I hardly know a thing about District 13.

As the time passes, the sky beyond the hovercraft's window steadily grows darker, my limbs beginning to grow heavy. I'm slouching, nodding off between nightmares in the dim control room when Leon returns. Calm as ever, he comes to sit beside me, picks up his gun and slings it back over his chest just as he turns off autopilot. I watch the stars and moon overhead beginning to blur as he picks up the speed.

"We're landing in five minutes," he says. "Better wake up quick, because Snow's waiting for you and he has made it crystal clear how impatient he is."

I thought Snow wanted me to visit District 12. "What do you mean? What happened?"

There's only silence, broken occasionally by the noises of the control panel and it's flashing red lights. Eeriness stirs in the air around us and I sit up straight, pressing my palms into my stomach for leverage. "Was it District 13?" I ask, hardly daring to hope.

Leon's lips press into a tight line before answering. "Yes, it was District 13."

"Peeta?"

"Peeta."

It has been long since they've done anything. So long. I'm not sure whether to cringe or smile. If I should worry or be elated. _What has Peeta done? _I want to ask, but I know President Snow will fill me on the details. Instead, like the last month I've been awake, I'm sent into spiraling thoughts wondering what Peeta's doing. Those three months I spent unconscious, what was he doing? Had he been hurt, too? The snakes were confirmed poisonous by one of the nurses I'd interrogated. Another one, a male Peacekeeper let slip that even after the screen cut black once we escaped the arena, he'd been in the Mayor's office, and the taping continued. Finnick took a snake bite to the bicep and thigh. Peeta fended off a few with his prosthetic leg, metal stronger than teeth, but he'd thrown himself into their midst at the end, at the chance he might reach me before I fell.

Guilt blooms inside my chest. Always, again and again Peeta never fails to surprise me with his determination. His pure will to protect me. Sometimes I wonder if it is foolish of me not to expect it by now. The lengths he would go to get me back. And I can not even dream of what he would do, if he knew I was pregnant... that's why I've assumed President Snow has been hesitant to put me on the television. This is a secret he has. Everyone knows he has me, but they don't know about the baby, not truly. Not unless they believed the lie Peeta told, and were ironically correct to assume. District 13 certainly won't. Not with Peeta oblivious to the truth.

"Katniss?" I hum a response, narrowing my eyes at Leon. "Watch what you say to him."

"Why?" I find myself snapping. "He's already taken my home. My family.. Prim.." my voice cracks there. "And its too early for the baby to fall into his hands. If he kills me, good. I'll be glad for it."

There is a glamor of something that crosses the man's face, then it becomes smooth. "He won't kill you, Katniss. That mercy is already gone. You had a chance at it in the arena.. but now.." Leon shakes his head sadly. I see his hands grip the control panel tighter, knuckles white. "President Snow is a powerful man who will do anything to save our country. If he must go to ugly means to do so–and he will if you refuse to be obedient–then I fear you will not be able to handle it. Not as you are now. If you are willing to let this tragedy overcome you, then you will lose your fight, too soon. Snow will break you at your weakest, when you turn your back on living, as you have now. You're losing sight of the bigger picture. Don't let this failure change you into a person of defeat, learn from it. Be who you were before," he pauses and his eyes peek at me out the corner of his sight, "just be for the Capitol. That's all."

And this is how he does it. Leon tugs, tugs, _tugs_ at my heartstrings, rallying up my spirits and trying to warn me friendly, all the while converting me to the Capitol's side. I don't know what to say to him at these moments. Only _no. _I can see what he says is true, most of it anyway. I can't be this weak, hopeless creature. Especially not now. I can't give into that dark place inside me because of Prim and my family and recent failures. Personal tragedy aside, there is a country out there, needing me. A baby inside me, needing me. Peeta, waiting for me.

"I know," I tell Leon. And there is no further discussion.


	2. Chapter Two

_**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

_A/N: Extra long in hopes of extra long reviews? Thank you to everyone who has alerted or favorited this story. I'm loving all the reviews you give me. I swear I read about each one twice. Thanks for reading. Sorry for typos. I think some Peeta fans will be liking this chapter.. quite a bit. (Again, tell me if you think Katniss is out of character. For this situation and the changes she's made since normal Katniss, hormonal Katniss, to pregnant and trapped Katniss, I think they're practical, as well as the conclusions she's met are realistic at this point. If you don't share!) -Taryn(:_

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Chapter Two

As if a weight tugs at the back of my neck, my head dips low the moment we step from the hovercraft onto the dark, dreary street behind the President's mansion. All around me rises the Capitol. Jagged skyscrapers competing with the bowl of mountains in the distance. The manicured grass at the edge of the lawn. Hedges of sweet smelling flowers. Night sky a hypnotic blue. All painted in moonlight.

There is a stillness about me. When last I was here, being blindly escorted from place to place, from hospital bed to other restraining means it seemed like a headquarters of bustle and business. Head Peacekeepers from every district stopping by. Other politicians or trusted advisers, Gamemakers, coming and going by hovercraft and car. Now, there is nothing but silence.

I'm used to stranger Peacekeepers when I am within the mansion's confinements, so when I feel Leon's warm hand on my lower back guiding me gently on my way, a surge of shock runs up the length of my spine. A series of threats and distant arena memories stick out in my thoughts and I think to flinch, strike him across the face with a blinding blow from my elbow, escape.

Then, we enter a door in the back of the President's mansion, shuffle quickly through a hall, fly down a flight of stairs, and I know that there's no escaping. I'll be met only with another Peacekeeper when this one falls, then the whole city would stand in my way. Whether I made it through that or not, I also know the mountains would pose their own barricade should I try to free myself.

My hearts sinks with every floor we pass. As far as I know they go deeper into the earth than District 12's mines. Despite my constant shifting and the urge to shove his touch away, Leon's hand remains against my back, and lifts away only when the gleam of an elevator at the end of the next hall appears. For the oddest reason, the lack of his touch makes me feel colder than I had before it. I'm so starved of friendly human contact that my body's reactions must be way off of practical.

"I'll be waiting here until you are released," Leon says. Again, it is almost as if he could sense whenever I'm in need of some reassurance. I'm horrified by how reassuring that one promise is to me. The way his eyes bore into my face, equal parts observant and concerned.

A twinge in my mind warns me he could be playing with me, and my hand raises to my throbbing head. He is just waiting for a chance to get my guard down and kill me. Guns are faster than arrows. _I have no arrows. _Yet, it's as if I've never left the arena. He's the ally I can't trust wholeheartedly but despite it, I dearly wish him to accompany me on the path ahead of myself; of life or death, of a perilous walk on a tight rope as thin as paper.

Leon draws against the nearest wall and repositions his hat over his forehead. I can't see his eyes underneath the shadow, and it seems like he's just an empty man once more, with nothing but orders to follow. Any comfort he gave me, swiftly slips away at the reminder.

Swallowing thickly, I step into the elevator and instantly my thoughts go to what matters. It's completely unavoidable. His name is on the tip of my tongue but tinted with vinegar and other unpleasant tastes. It is nagging me in the back of my mind, tinged with unnameable emotions, worries, and frustrations.

_What has Peeta done to upset Snow?_

I've been waiting for this day, when he'll act out and try to get me back. Even if four months have passed between my capture and now, I still feel as though the action has come far too soon. Too risky. President Snow has been nothing but patient with me the past few weeks, but if Leon's words are of any indication, I might not get to continue this safe in-between existence I've managed to cling onto.

Snow will be wanting a counter strike. Whatever Peeta's done, he will want me to do better. And what frightens me isn't the thought that I will have to do it. It's that I _can't. _Everyone knows I'm an awful actress. I can't lie to save my life, literally. And Peeta is the best actor in the world, how can I compete? How can Snow expect me to contend against him?

My legs are stiff with abject terror the lower the elevator drops and in response the more floors that drift by. I'm thinking of the mines and its own elevator. District 12's elevator may not be as shiny or the ride so smooth, but the more I think of the miles of rubble over my head, inescapable thoughts of my father surface in my mind. All those nightmares throughout my childhood rush in, swiping with them my strength. A pang in me cries out for drugs; only bringing on a new worry of substance abusing. All of it crashes onto me, while I'm stuck in a small box that doesn't seem to have enough air.

_Don't faint,_ I think, the bite of my fingernails in my outer thigh commanding just that.

When the metal doors finally slide open, I stand for a minute, knees shaking, and two Peacekeepers that I don't know come in to drag me out. They lead me into a short hall with lights overhead that are far too bright. There are no windows, only a chill that wets the air with a scent of soil and mildew. There are multiple doors along the corridor, and a cheap, graying carpet spanning the length of the floor, but the door at the end of the hall is the only one the guards seem to notice.

The room is bitterly cold, the hallway almost pleasant in comparison. A rough, metal table stands in the middle of everything, surrounded by several chairs. One harsh bloom of light comes from a lamp in the corner and a phone is set on the table just below a large television hanging on the opposite wall. I don't know what to make of it; an office? Or a room of potential imprisonment? Torture chamber?

The concrete floors under my feet look to be stained here and there by dark splotches of either brown or black, and the rusty drain in the middle of the perfectly square-walled room makes me feel as though things that I can not even imagine have happened here.

To top it all off, President Snow stands waiting.

"Do you want me to tie her?" asks one of the Peacekeepers.

"Please," Snow says, a hard look flitting across his expression.

I hiss when two rough hands behind me quickly cross my wrists and tie them together. It takes all my pride not to squirm, or spit. A strand of hair falls loose from my braid. When I toss my head to flip the lock out of my eyes, it only slides forward again along my opposite cheek.

With all the kindness of a butcher the two Peacekeepers deposit me into a chair at the back of the table, thankfully far from Snow. _Why tie me? _I wondered._ Has Peeta done something to cause me to grow violent?_ It's possible, but with my condition, very unlikely. I'll probably, embarrassingly, be too focused on his safety than to do anything that matters.

Snow turns and stares at me for a fraction of a second, then looks to the guards. "Leave us."

The men promptly depart, closing the door after them. In the ensuing silence, my heart beats so heavily in my chest I'm afraid he can hear it. Yet, I recall Leon's words. _He won't kill me. Only break me. _I can't let him break me. All the terror, all my fears and uncertainties I lock tightly on the inside. Outside, I straighten my shoulders high, or as much as my tied hands and pregnancy allows them to be. I refuse to break the connection of our eyes; not allowing him to win. I can tell there's something different. Which only brings me back to the question that's gnawing at my mind. _What did Peeta and the District 13 do? _

"I've been a very polite and patient man with you, Miss Everdeen."

He expects a reply, and I don't have one. Sure, I'm glad he has been that way, but I never asked for it. Far as I'm concerned I don't owe him a thing. Though he seems convinced I owe him my life ten times over. While he plays his games, pacing around the edge of the table, I twist my wrists to test just how tightly the ropes are bound and I bite into the side of my cheek when the coarse fabric grate against my skin.

"I have given you many chances. All of which you have turned down," Snow continues to say. He stands right in front of me now and I suddenly wish all my hair was loose, so I could hide my face behind a curtain. His dark eyes shift over my expression studying me with thoughtful, unnerving precision. "Since I'm a generous person, I will give you one last chance before jumping to the less pleasant means of your cooperation."

To stand up for my beliefs or to save my child? Is what he's asking me. Torn, is one word for how I feel, but one thing makes me weaker than anything and it is the last remaining questions that taunt my choices at each cross road.

How can I abandon the last person who stands with me? What kind of human being would give away their own child for their obstinance? Who was I to take the life of this little being inside me? Wouldn't I just be as monstrous as the Capitol itself if I murdered the innocent child? How could I justify something like that?

The answer is simple.

I can't.

I have no choice. With all my strength and remaining determination not to let him break me, all my stubbornness and loyalty, I just simply _can't_. He knows I have no choice and I say, very unenthusiastically, "What do you want me to do?"

His lips stretch into a disturbing smile. "Good choice, but I will get to the specifics later. We have time yet." Snow takes the seat at the opposite side of the table to me, hands folding into each other on top of the rough silver surface. "For now, how was your trip?" he asks. "Everything you imagined it to be, I hope."

I'm sure he doesn't miss the flash of grief that slithers across my face. Maybe he saw more than I wanted. All those people and even, possibly, my family _lost_. Gone. Never to be found again. And it's all my fault, which makes it all the more painful. I refuse to answer him.

I break eye contact and stare at the floor. Defeated momentarily. He asks twice more. I don't answer.

A daring thing, and I realize even more so when he roughly pushes himself back up. Every sharp step of his foot around the edge of the table coils my muscles tighter. And when his hand reaches for the hem of my shirt, it is like a pair of claws, greedily grasping at me. I jerk away, my back tight against the back of the chair, but it doesn't stop Snow from ripping the fabric of my shirt aside.

My hands instantly itch to retaliate, with a few stronger, swifter blows to the face, but like he's obviously predicted this would happen, my wrists are bound too tight to so much as push myself into a more comfortable position. I had to sit, unable to retch myself away from the hateful, monstrous man touching me.

Soft, luminous blue lines of my veins spread across the paler skin of my abdomen like a twisting labyrinth. Snow's fingers trace every last one, making it seem more like a spiderweb, the gooseflesh on my arms and legs prickling every one of my hairs in displeasure. In reaction to my rapid heart rate, the child begins to grow restless, and kicks. Snow lifts his chin, eyes steady on my face as he places three fingers right over the spot it last hit. I wince at the second spasm of the child, its movement nearly painful.

"Very strong," Snow says, approvingly.

_Strong and stubborn, _I thought. His words break a carefully bordering dam in my mind, reaching into my troubled motherhood side. One minute I'm disgusted by his touch that I have no chance to repel and the next I have images of him taking my strong child and throwing it carelessly into the arena. Just to see how strong it would really be.

I know I'm not far off mark when he comments, lightly, "An even stronger spirit, no doubt. Like its mother. Something to test... or crush, don't you think?"

My eyes shut unbearably. "No."

"What was that?"

"No," I say, louder and reopening my eyes.

"What will you do to keep it from happening, Katniss?"

The fists behind my back are so tight that I'm sure the lack of blood circulation is turning my fingers blue. "Whatever you want me to." The words like venom on my tongue.

He does not answer immediately, but continues to stare at me with hard eyes, his hand now very heavy on my stomach. Something in me is nudging loose. A thing I grapple to hold close. A piece of my sanity. Something Prim does to me, too. The true need for me to protect the child. A leaking desperation seeping into my voice. "Anything," I say. "I'll be the Mockingjay. _Your_ Mockingjay."

It's what he wanted to hear. "Good, your fiance has been very troublesome lately and I think if you get out there, show him what's really at stake, this whole thing might be over quicker than we both anticipated."

There's a tinge of expectancy in his eyes that tells me he wants to see my shock at the mention of my fiance. Even though Leon told me about the rebels' meddling, I'm not sure if he was supposed to. Maybe he let it slip, or thought Snow wouldn't think a thing of it. Something like moral decency keeps me from relaying the mess up on the Head Peacekeeper's behave, and I take on a bewildered frown. "Peeta?"

Thankfully, I didn't have to fake the longing in my voice, which causes Snow to smile. "He's been busy."

"With what?"

Snow's tongue darts out of his mouth, licking his lower lip and the smell of the rose on his suit is overcome with blood. The rusty, sharp-acidic scent flows into my lungs, swelling inside my throat. I thought I had gotten accustomed to it from all the talks we've had. Almost did. But once it became painfully obvious, the rose's scent being drowned out, my stomach heaves.

"Well, nothing that out does anything you've ever done," Snow says, oblivious to my increasing repulse. "Don't dwell on worry about that," he assures me. "Just some little agitating task he's pulled off. Like heading a rescue mission in District 4, and retrieving the prisoners I'd been harboring there."

"Prisoners?"

"Annie Cresta."

This stirs something in my memory. Someone Johanna mentioned... and then I hear Finnick, screeching at the jabberjays, far distance, echoing in the caves. A surge of irrational jealousy runs along my limbs. Peeta's saving people. Other people and not me. Moments later, I get over that, and it's replaced with an unmistakable, merciful lightness. Peeta _can_ outdo President Snow. In one way or another. It's not the fact that he's saved someone, because in the light of the war, that little task seems so small. The lightness spawns from the hope that if he and District 13 can pull off one thing without dying, maybe it could lead to more...

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Hope is easy to attach to, especially in my state. They failed to get me. Have failed to do anything in the past four months. There must have been a reason for them to risk everything to save this young woman. Annie wouldn't be as heavily watched as I am, nor would they think of Peeta going to get _her_. Which only makes me wonder how Finnick's health is fairing. Maybe he refuses to become their famous firebrand symbol unless he gets his Annie. Or the snakes did him in far more than people think. It would make sense. Maybe that means he'll be joining the rebellions publicity front soon.

Hope simmers inside of me, for the first time since the announcement of the Quarter Quell. Foreign as it is, and as much as I hate to hope when I have nothing certain to grasp, the emotion must surge across my expression, because I catch Snow's eyes flaring with relentless anger.

"Don't be getting any ideas. Be careful that he doesn't surmount himself. I'll hold you accountable, and if you think to use him as a weapon against me you will find out just how far I am willing to go to save this country, Miss Everdeen!"

His voice raises for the first time I've heard it and he gives my stomach a hard, painful slap, before rising to his feet and swinging around towards the phone the gives a shrill cry. I suck in a sharp breath, consumed with the unfairness of his words. How can I control Peeta from here? What makes it my job to reign him in, thousands of miles away and completely cut from communicate ties?

"Yes," President Snow says into the phones receiver. I don't bother raising my eyes from the floor as he continues to talk, his words flying in one of my ears and out the other. Anger and fear wells up inside my chest along with everything else gathered there for the day. I shift around, hands still tied, trying to knock the fabric of my shirt back over my all too exposed (and vulnerable) belly.

Snow's voice raises, drawing my attention, "Put it on the screen," he says. With those words alone, I've already got my eyes up, focusing on the television, so he doesn't demand anything of me as it flashes quickly with the Capitol's symbol. The skin on the back of my neck prickles, and I wonder what he's going to show me.

At first I can't make sense of the scene. It's all moving too fast, the camera's slant all too strange. Quickly, I find that the blurs of color moving around are a group of running people. Peeta's among them, and he's holding, to my utter shock, a gun. But so is half the other rebels, all dressed in a similar outfit of light gray. They're in some sort of hallway, pausing only to mutter over a wrist watch on Peeta's arm, and all of them obviously nervous or skittish. Every time they turn a corner the camera switches angles.

"Where is this?" I demand. "When?"

"District Four's Justice Building," Snow answers. "These are what our security camera's picked up, and this happened today. This morning. While you were out."

The tapes have no sound, I have to rely purely on facial expression, hand motions, and lips to understand them. Peeta's very evidently in charge, as he runs a pace in front of everyone else and whenever they reach a doorway or other means of obstruction they look to him for an answer.

I know Snow is watching me. To gauge what I make of this. What ideas this might give me. I couldn't care less what he found, though. This is the first time I've seen a familiar face in.. such a long time. Johanna I last saw weeks ago; a broken nose and black eyes, and shaved head. A stranger, really. Peeta though, is the picture of health. I can't take my eyes off of him. For one heartbeat, my eyes fly from the screen to look at Snow. I search his face frantically for a sign of smugness, triumph, anything. _Would this tape show Peeta being shot down? Taken into custody? Were those things he said earlier all lies to get me to watch eagerly? _Reluctantly I turn back to the screen, finding nothing in the man's face.

Something about the dent between Peeta's eyebrows shows some sort of genuine worry that the others don't seem to possess. A thing I can't make sense of until Peeta helps another rebel companion kick down a door, and he rushes in to unstrap a woman, I presume as Annie Cresta, from a table. To the others, it looks like just another job, an order they must follow. With Peeta, there is a true, fervent determination blazing in his eyes.

Peeta carries her out personally, hanging gently over his shoulder as the others run ahead, shooting down and gassing Peacekeepers who attempt to take them down. Everything, to me, is going by too fast. It seems so surreal. Seeing Peeta again, so animated, dressed in uniform, in charge, gives me relief. Every time he narrowly misses a bullet I stiffen. I'm struck momentarily with the fact that he's not even raising, let alone acknowledging the fact that he has a gun of his own.

Somehow I knew he wouldn't use it. And another part of me thinks, _idiot. _

It wasn't until the last few shots of their escape, that the cameras stationed on the back steps of the Justice Building catch, do I notice Gale among the rebels' numbers. Predictably it's his dark hair and skin that catches my notice, then the hardened expression that confirms it. It matches all the others in the group; eyes narrowed and watchful, chest thrown out in defense, fingers hovering over the trigger of their guns, a flat, untrusting gleam in their eyes.

Nothing like Peeta at all. I don't know what to make of Gale being there. For a minute I consider this all to be a lie. A trick of the Capitol, trying to make me believe this happened, when really this is just one huge manipulation of photos and interviews and scenes in the Games.

I'm still drinking in the replay when I decide it has to be real.

Why did they do it? It wasn't that I didn't want this woman rescued, but it was that I knew their actions would come back and be attributed to me. Didn't Peeta realize this would hurt me? Gale? Or did they not care? Have they decided maybe they don't need the Mockingjay after all? No. Not even for a moment do I consider that to be true.

Peeta isn't an idiot. He knows full well what kind of trouble this could cause me. And that was hardly a hesitant, distressed person strutting in to save the woman in that video. It _meant_ something to him. Maybe somehow, this could help me in the long run. In some way I'm not seeing at this very moment. Or maybe... well I got the vague feeling that it was... important to Peeta. Is it possible he promised someone to retrieve Annie? That someone being Finnick?

A pain throbs silently at the base of my skull. My mind a jumble of questions. Thoughts of Finnick are directly associated with the Quarter Quell and so I quickly avert my thoughts to a less painful remembrance; _Gale. _He's alive. For a _minute_ I'm elated, forgetting everything and where I am. It's like one less guilt infected rock weighing on my shoulders. He looked healthy enough, not beaten or starving. Not one trace of burn marks marring his skin, from what I saw, which makes me wonder what really ensued at the district when the firebombs struck. Seeing him, my best friend, makes the hope rise even further, at the possibility of my mother and Prim thriving in District 13. And that's all I need to see to feel strength again. If Gale lived, there's no conceivable way that he would have run from the fires reach without his, let alone my, family.

To see Peeta and Gale fighting.. even just those other rebel men and women with them, it is enough to remind me why I should fight. For family. For those I love. _For the ones I haven't been able to truly say I loved. _For a moment I wonder if Peeta knows. If he could tell that slowly, over the time I've had to come to terms with the pregnancy, that I wouldn't have had it any other way. Peeta's child, I could have. I could protect. Love, even, maybe. Peeta, though, I do love. I know it so surely now, not because of the child, but because even though I loathe being here, in the Capitol, hopeless, I would not switch places with him. Not even to be with Gale and my family. Not if it meant him enduring this pain. And I know I love him, because there is no one sweeter, no one more pure. Except maybe Prim... but I'd already saved Prim from Snow's clutches, nearly two years ago, when I volunteered for her.

I know I love Peeta because if I'm willing to do what I'd done for Prim, for him, how can I not? Or to ignore it, seems impossible. I remember times before this, as children. All those times I've noticed him in school, pretended I didn't. I'd always thought he was so complicated, that I owed him too much. Those blushes. Glances. Childish stalling of a thank you for saving my life, for giving me hope. Back then I had thought it would be too messy, too complicated to get into. That I would never be able to do anything. Now, the messiness and complex of our relationship is horridly worse. Yet, now I can say it with as much as certainty as I tell Prim or Gale that I love them. I love Peeta Mellark. And I miss him.

Along with the impossible hope rising inside of me, and all this certainty that'd I'd not found in my time of stability, but instead in my imprisonment, is a crippling loneliness. I don't know if it's just the mere sight of my best friend, or Peeta, or if it was simply them _together_. The two have never gone well in my thoughts when it was at the same time, but as Snow replays the scene for the second time I note that it was Gale and Peeta who kicked down the door conjointly. Peeta and Gale are working as a team, evidently, and I wonder if it's all for me. A sudden surge of tolerance because of a similar cause. I watch, transfixed by the screen. Them talking to each other softly. Slowly making hand motions at each other as they advance down the halls. Almost like they were... on friendly terms.

It's not the fact that they are possibly bettering from my absence, but it's that they got to be together, and I was stuck here with _Snow_.

On top of that I could not tear my eyes from Peeta's face. The weakness in me, that I told him he planted, makes me crave the radiating warmth that would result from the feel of his palms pressed into my skin. Snow made a mistake, letting me see this. Once looking into his face, for the first time since our separation, no matter how distant and distracted from me Peeta may be, I'm blindsided with my rush of determination.

Old, lost promises inside me rush to the surface, my fear drowning behind its strength. My beliefs jam themselves right back into place, and for a fleeting moment, I forget the child. I only need to protect Peeta. A familiar habit that could not be cut so quick.

"Are you ready to hear what I want you to do?" Snow asks me.

"Are you ready to untie me?"

He ignores my comment. "Tomorrow, Caesar and you will be going on stage. This is your last chance, Katniss, I will not tolerate any slip of words or show of rebellion support. You will defuse this bomb of yours and tell them that a cease fire _must_ be called to preserve human life. And if you find it necessary, plead through the camera with Peeta and District 13. Go off the star-crossed lovers and child if it'll actually be believable this time, but I expect it should be... if you want to avoid my last ditch efforts of commanding your obedience."

His words don't chill me as much as they should. It takes a lot of effort not to snort at them, actually, but eventually I lose the battle and a smile cracks across my face. "You really think anyone is going to call a cease fire? There's no way they'll just throw down their arms. Not now."

Snow ducks closer, looks me over sharply, then smiles easily. Which, of course, only causes a warning siren to go off in my head, efficiently turning down the corners of my own lips. "Then for your sake, Miss Everdeen," Snow says. "You better hope they listen."

His hand on the table reaches over to me and pats my stomach as the silence continues to ring through the air surrounding us. The time ticks by as I mull over his words. Five minutes passes and as it does I grow more upset, and increasingly less sure. I can't make them do that. District 13 might draw away, maybe. I have no idea. The others though? Those poor people still remaining in District 3? There's absolutely no way to make those who have given up everything at this point to go back to the way it used to be by calling a ceasefire and packing up their things.

Finally, one painful throb of my head after another I realize what President Snow is doing. He's setting me up for failure. Was there anything in me that might convince him I could do it? Does he overestimate the effect the power of maternity has on me? "I'll try," I say, finally, thinking of Peeta. If he'll fight I'll fight. _Didn't Gale tell me once never to stop fighting? _I can't remember for sure.

"We will have you prepped before midnight, no need to delay this. We'll tape it tonight and air it tomorrow morning. Perhaps this will be the end of our whole predicament. Don't you think, Miss Everdeen?"

Before I can answer there is a light tap on the door. A faint moan reaches my ears through the wood and I raise my head, turning it completely from Snow. He tries to get my attention again. "Katniss," he says. "Miss Everdeen.."

"Who's that?"

President Snow sighs. "I can see I have used up all of your attention span for tonight. Please, rise. Did you know it is a proper gentleman who sees a woman on her way out? There are many things, like manners, that are lost among the districts." He offers me his arm wordlessly. I stand, stiffly, awkwardly and it seems like he's forgotten I'm tied, but no matter. President Snow hooks his arm through mine anyway, very professionally, with an air of superiority. Then, very low and quiet in my ear as we pace to the door, me stiff and waiting for the catch, he says, "Remember, this can be pleasant if you make it so, Miss Everdeen," and then we're at the door.

President Snow drops my arm and opens it, receiving the people beyond it before letting me through. "Your next visitor," says a voice. "Where would you like her?"

I can't see around President Snow, nor hear what he mutters to them. There is a shuffling of multiple pairs of feet entering the shadowy room, and I lift my toes, turning my eyes ever so slightly to catch sight– my heart leaps into my throat, just as I see.

Two Peacekeepers dump Johanna's slumped, half conscious body into the chair I'd just vacated ringing the metal table. Her head lulls forward, and just as I make a move forward to see why there is a gushing of blood blooming across newly placed, bleach white bandages around her hand, the Peacekeepers grab me under the armpits.

"Escort her to the fifth floor. My own personal prep team. I want her looking," Snow pauses, then smiles, "maternal."

The guards nod. They haul me out of the room, me struggling to catch any piece of Johanna's attention. It seems to be impossible. She's too out of it. Drugs? Or pain? Exhaustion? The stubble of her hair has grown back some, but the yellowing bruises along her scalp are plain to see. I try to get a better view but the guards pull me along as if I'm nothing more than a sack of potatoes. Until the door is swinging viciously closed in my face and Johanna is out of sight, left behind, in there, with Snow.

I feel as though I'll be sick.

The elevator ride up isn't as bad as the last, and the moment I step out Leon takes me from the arms of the two unknown Peacekeepers. They smile at Leon and he grins back. Their words chill me; they imply the show that will be going on downstairs. They express how sad they are that he'll miss it. Leon gestures to me and gives a sort of _I got other plans _shrug. I watch them depart, images of Johanna screaming, as they use knifes and saws and multiple other torturous implements to draw those sort of noises out of her, whirling around my thoughts.

With those grueling images in mind, the sight of light glinting across metal out the corner of my eyes causes me to flinch. Leon's pulling a blade toward me, from behind, and I try to scramble away, but his hands grab me roughly to force me still. He slices the knife downward and I screw my eyes shut in anticipation of the bite. Only to get the relief of the irritating ropes falling free of my wrists.

I nearly flush under his harsh look of annoyance. "Better?" he asks.

"Much."

He leads me in silence back up the same halls and steps that we'd taken on our trip down. Most of the time I'm watching my feet, rubbing my wrists that are, even for how little they were tied, red and raw. One more elevator ride, of which is a nicer model, complete with soft music tinkling out of multiple speakers. It must be the guest elevator, not the prisoner one. All the same it has us up on the fifth floor in one swoosh of nausea. Exhaustion draws on me, rather quickly, especially when thinking about the hours of camera time I will have to endure, on top of the effort of making people actually believe I _want_ a ceasefire.

I won't lie. I was expecting something nice when President Snow ordered me to his own personal prep team. He is the President after all and I thought, perhaps, it would be a team similar to my old shallow and affectionate one. Like Venia, with her aqua hair on the Victory Tour, or Octavia who sobbed at my farewell before the Quarter Quell. Of course, I should really learn to be less expectant where Snow is implied, because when Leon pushes me into a room I'm caught off guard by just how stoic it all is.

The room is, if possible, colder than the one underground. The walls and floors are white, blindingly so, and it feels more like a museum. Detached and unfeeling, where you are scared to walk through it in fear of disturbing its perfection. To misalign an object. Sit in a chair and make it wrinkled.

Two men stand with uncreased, tucked white uniforms, faces wiped clean of expression and very serious airs of stillness eluding their features. They dismiss Leon with a passing nod after he tells them Snow's request of my appearance, and each of them step forward to grab one of my wrists. They place me in a chair in front of a mirror, where I'm forced to watch them prep my body for the upcoming mission ahead of me.

They move faster than my other prep team. With them there is no fruitless gossip, no comments or talking of any type. They seem to work seamlessly. Never pausing as their hands fly from one piece of me to the other. Make-up erases the traces of despair and lines of exhaustion across my face. Different hues and shimmering lusters are applied to actually make it look like my scowl-worthy expression might be teetering toward a smile. My brows and legs are stinging from the waxing; they didn't even let me bathe, but instead toweled me down with wet cloths and their cold hands.

I stare at my face as they tweak my hair. I'm not sure how they did it. Hardly anything makes it look like they have been mistreating me, which I suppose they haven't yet, but Snow's threats are still ringing in my ears, only making the thought of happiness completely beyond reach.

How can just one sweep of make-up make my face look so plump? It changes a lot. Makes me look just as Snow wanted; maternal. Kind, motherly, just what plump young girls, with a bulging abdomen should look like. With bright eye brought out by cosmetics and an eagerness that shines in my artificial blush, it makes me wonder how Peeta will react to seeing my face like this. To seeing the thing that rests underneath my shirt. Would he be upset? Happy, fleetingly? Mad that I hadn't told him? What do I want him to feel? I don't know. Not really.

I know how seeing him effected me. Could I somehow slip in the words I've never said to him? Would that help or hinder him? Me? But I don't want to do that, either. It'll only seem false. _But it doesn't have to be that way. _And it isn't... hasn't been. I do love him, I want him to know, for sure. So if I die, Peeta won't live on thinking I'd hated him for the baby, or for the star-crossed lover mistake. I know, though, that I won't say it. I don't want to. It's not real enough. It has to be in person, in private, when I can kiss him and mean it. Truthfully the thought of saying it on television just isn't _me_. To share my emotions to everyone, through the camera, is too public. I have a hard enough time sharing my emotions with Prim, and with her at least I can do it comfortably. Which all seems ridiculous, considering the past year, where I'd gotten engaged to him on camera, but I can not truthfully share with Panem I love him now.

When he sees me, I just hope he doesn't lose sight of what really matters. I saw him fighting and it makes me want to fight. So would him seeing me give up, make _him_ want to give up? Would the sight of me looking like this, heavy with his child, cause something in him to throw aside fighting attempts and beg to have me back? Would he feel sad? Regretful? Betrayed? Like I'm sure half the nation will once the word ceasefire crosses my lips.

When the two men finish primping the thin wisps of hair around my face and at the back of my neck, leaving the rest in a heavy braid against my right shoulder, they have me stand and strip. I'm usually self conscious about nakedness. The vulnerability of it makes me wince, but I don't actually feel that threatened or embarrassed, especially not with these two. It's as if I'm in an unfeeling, hospital-like room all by myself with ghosts that work around me. Empty people. I begin to wonder if they're Avoxes.

A dress made of velvet is carefully placed over my head and the fabric settles lightly on my shoulders as its light blue coloring gives my skin a new tone of darkness. Almost like I haven't been deprived of sunlight for weeks.

Surprisingly they spend a lot of time on my nails. They've got nothing to work with, since I've chewed them to nubs over the past week. Halfway through the process of finishing my toes, my head starts to ache. It's the longest I've gone without drugs since the ending of the Quarter Quell, and just before it could get unbearable, guess who steps in with a plateful of food to hold me together?

"I tried to get some of the lamb stew you said you loved," Leon tells me as I devour a piece of fruit, "but this was all I could find within the Peacekeeper's kitchens." I'm not sure how to reply. It's saying a lot that he even remembers that, it was nearly two years ago when I was that little girl on the stage, giggling and twirling and freely giving compliments to the Capitol. Maybe that's why he cares; he remembers me that way.

However his expressionless stare in the mirror as he stands behind me gives away nothing. I attempt to smile at him, hoping that it'll help me practice for when I'll have to smile for the cameras, and express my thanks. The food does help immensely with my headache. Substance in my stomach ceases the churning, that I have a vague inkling the child causes.

The prep team finishes me up by strapping on nice, _safe_, and un-heeled flats. Leon is the one who helps me get awkwardly back on my feet. It's the prep team that escorts me to the giant mirror against the wall on our right.

What I hate about the dress isn't that its easy to move in, but that it's making my stomach even more obvious. It's maternal clothing. Something I've seen rarely around the district. Mothers usually begin wearing their husbands clothing once they've outgrown their own. The ruffles along the sleeves make me scowl. These clothes are a hundred percent not me. Just one more reminder to everyone who owns me. The Capitol has signed itself across my appearance once again.

But this time's different. This time not only do I look like them, I'll be talking like them. No freedom of speech. Every word that flies from my tongue is tinged with what they want and feel. I'm no longer myself. I'm the Capitol's Mockingjay. I'm an empty husk of a girl who was once on fire, forced to sit at the sideline, made to obey and shackled by her own beliefs. My belief that what makes the Capitol so atrocious is that they kill innocent children; so how can I kill mine without being them? In my head, there is these two options. Die before I become a tool against the rebels or be the tool. There is no third option, no rescue. Not this time. But really, there is only on option. Live. Be the tool. A good mother.

"You've done a nice job," Leon tells the prep team, stepping forward. "Snow will be pleased. You've been here for hours, I think he will not mind if you leave for a dinner break. I'm sure there are still left overs, a few sandwiches, you must be famished. I'll handle her until the cameras are ready."

"Are you sure?" asks the taller male. It's the first time I've heard either speak and his voice is as brittle as glass. Not Avox after all.

Leon gives a smile, I'm surprised by how lazy and warm it seems. "Think I'd let her get away?"

There is a sharing of amusement I don't understand, then the two members of Snow's prep team sweep from the room. Leon's smile disappears the second they are gone and it makes me wonder if it was in all actuality forced. His eyes find mine again, but this time I turn to face him and his lips press into a thin line.

"You will make them believe, won't you? They'll listen to you?" Leon demands. "You can get the rebels to call a ceasefire?"

Even though there is a forced calm to his voice, I can hear the earnest hope seeping through it. "I don't know," I tell him, honestly. I can't look at him much longer, so I turn to inspect myself in the mirror. My hands fidgeting with the irritating dress. "They don't actually go by my orders, you know."

"Does anybody?" he murmurs.

I open my mouth to snap, but to think about it... no. I don't make any of the plans. I mess up the plans that everyone else makes, it's my thing. I screwed over Snow's plan. A law, even, of having only one victor. Which initially got me in this mess. My capture messed up the whole point of the Quarter Quell, not only because the rebels failed to get me, but also Snow's original plot was to have me die in that arena, which of those I did neither. Even now, I'm worried that this interview will not work out. The ceasefire won't happen. Everyone knows it.

The hopelessness of it all threatens to choke me.

Leon steps forward, making my eyes snap to his in the mirror's reflection, his face hovering over my shoulder a few yards behind. His frown is concerning; he's frustrated. For several minutes he mulls over something that seems to trouble him. When he does speak, his eyes flick around the room. "Can you promise me something?" he asks.

No. All I can promise is more suffering. Still my lips part on their own accord. "What do you want from me?" I say, the words tinged with exasperation. I'm tired of people wanting me, and even more so, _using_ me.

"Tell me you'll _try_," Leon says. "Will you promise me to do everything in your power to influence an end? I don't care how it ends, with the rebels or the Capitol, I just want this dying to stop. I'm not the only one. Please, Katniss, you started this, don't you think you at least owe something to us, all of us, to stop the misery? Don't you know that you're not the only one who has lost something? _Someone_?"

My eyes drop to my hands. Fingers picking at the newly manicured nails. "I know that," I say. "But how can you ask me to stop all the dying, when it was you and your people who have been killing twenty-three kids for over seventy-five years? How can you justify that to me? I didn't mean to start this war, not at first, but maybe now that you know how it feels to lose something, there's hope."

"_Hope,"_ Leon replies sharply, "that anyone who survives whatever this war may lead to will be bitter people filled with prejudice and hatred, completely incapable of understanding at all why this war was even started; with a girl who wanted the boy she cared for to live."

"There will be children," I say, my voice growing hard. My eyes find his in the mirror again, scowling back at his glare. "They will be beyond the reach of the leftover destruction. They'll be free of the Hunger Games and that's why I did it, not because Peeta, not because I could, not to shove the rules into Snow's face. But because I didn't want anyone to feel the way I did when Prim was reaped."

Somehow between the snapping and his snarling, my hands have found their way to resting on my abdomen, pressing hard against the slope for support. His eyes flicker there, then back up and in those two seconds he's composed again; his anger and frustration hidden expertly behind a mask of professionalism.

"I have a son," he says abruptly, stunting me. "His name's Cooper, and he turned two just three days ago. I wasn't there to see him, or give him gifts or even smile, damn it. Instead, I was here, with you, hoping that somehow I could get you to notice that it's not just the Districts that matter. There are people, _human beings_ inside the Capitol, too, that can't be thought of as expendable. I want my son to grow up just as much as your kid! Snow may not care about us, and the rebels absolutely forget us, but someone has to care; I care. And I can't be the only one to care, Katniss. Someone else has to. Someone has to help us, because I'm not enough."

Leon's eyes soften in the mirror, until for a moment, I see him clearly. Not the Capitol's tool at all. Not some Peacekeeper who just blindly does as he's told. Maybe he didn't get unfortunately assigned to babysit me, but he weaseled his way into the position, just to have this conversation.

I know I don't care about the Capitol citizens. I know a whole lot of people in the districts hate them, because they have had it so much better. They never had to fear the reapings. Never had to look around and wonder who would be stolen from their lives the next coming year. Endless luxury was always at their fingertips, with food that they throw to waste, with drugs and styles they abuse. Even now I get sick thinking about the utter waste of life the people of the Capitol are. But then I think of the people that could be like Cinna, hiding somewhere in there, doing those trivial things, like fashion designing, which is useless, but I remember the way Cinna loved it, the way he did it flawlessly. Then there's Leon, who just like those in the districts, stick up for his people. No matter what Snow may want.

"What are you asking me?"

"Will you be my Mockingjay, Katniss?" Leon asks. "Not Snow's. Not the rebels, but _ours_, the forgotten citizens of the Capitol?"

My stomach does a whirl. The velvet of the blue dress under my fingers seems flimsy, no longer freeing, and for a minute I'm unsure of what I believe. I waver, thinking maybe I should be. His voice is so honest and calm, yet it hides the desperation he must really be feeling. It's a gift, that I wish I had, because as I open my mouth, I know my voice will shake.

"I don't want to be anyone's Mockingjay."

Leon takes a step closer to me. "Someone has to be. You have to choose a side."

"No," I snap, head swinging around to stare at him. "I shouldn't have to. I just want Peeta back. I want to see my sister, and Gale. My home _shouldn't_ be a pile of ash, and the Hunger Games should have never been. But things aren't like they should be, so stop saying things like that!"

It is silent after that, and slowly, I relax. The pressure of my hand on my stomach lessens and I feel the baby moving, stretching more like, and I trace the edges of where the limbs poke. It's strangely calming, as I take repeated deep breaths. My thoughts struggle to untangle, repositioning themselves again in preparation for the upcoming interview, that Leon efficiently distracted me from.

After nearly ten minutes, there is a knock at the door, summoning me. Leon wordlessly leads me out and escorts me down the hall into another room. This room reminds me a lot of the room Peeta and I had our after Hunger Games interview. A soft, yellow paint adorns the walls with white carpet on the floor and two plush chairs set in the center of microphones, cameras, and the crew that controls them.

Caesar sits on one of the chairs, smiling brightly over at me as I enter. His familiar face, among the sea of unfamiliar is like a breath of fresh air. At least I'll have one ally during this interview.

Just as I'm about to sit, Leon leans into my ear. "Don't promise me, if you don't want to," he whispers quickly. "But when you do this, don't think about betraying the rebels. Think about me, my son, think of what would happen to him if I died; he'll be an orphan. Think of the lives you could be saving, if the ceasefire actually does work." He pulls away before anyone can send a questioning look.

With a hand he pats my shoulder softly, then helps me sit down, hunching into the chair, arms falling around my stomach. I stare up at him as he backs out of the camera's shot, wondering what he meant about his son being an orphan. If I could actually, ever view it like he asked me to..? No, not at all. I might pity those very _few_ good souls in the Capitol, but I know I care more for Prim and Peeta and Gale than I do for strangers.

I don't get a chance to completely absorb what I want to do, let alone the chance to consider either Snow's or Leon's request, because the second I take a breath, the blinking red light on the camera goes on continuously and Caesar begins his opening lines.


	3. Chapter Three

_**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

_A/N: Can not think of anything else. Hoping everything is still straight. Thanks for reading, sorry for typos. Reviews mean updates. -Taryn(:_

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Chapter Three

"Katniss, it's in my understanding that this is your fourth month of pregnancy?" Not even five minutes into the interview and Caesar has gone from the undemanding, laughing lines of introduction to the most grueling subject within one exhale.

In some odd attempt to hide the child from the camera I wind my arms around the bump protruding between my knees and chest. "Yes," I breathe, unable to muster an intelligent or biting reply.

Terror strings itself throughout my body, set to remind me of the upcoming topic of war, and it intermixes with peculiar amounts of adrenaline that has my head spinning. Somehow, in an odd personally deflective way, this topic is worse than that of the war or Peeta or the Games. I don't want people to know about my child. I can't let them broadcast all the information I know of the child to the whole nation. It will only sum it up as vulnerable and exposed; just as I feel before the camera.

Plus, I must also call ceasefire. A ridiculous waste of time. Something that my survival leans on. All of this rolling into a ball of potential that Snow could use against me, or even go as far as harming the child in of itself.

Maybe the child is safer unknown, is what I'm starting to think.

My best defense is to be uncaring. The less I love the object of Snow's harm, the more his threats seem to loosen hold. There's a certain pattern and meandering to the defense I fall back on. Something I have mastered, with Peeta, I think, and my mind shuts down on instinct. There are no other words to push out of my mouth. Flashes of previous interviews when asked about Prim, or my father, or my mother when I've done similar things come to mind._I just simply don't want to talk about it._

I can't very well love something that isn't truly mine, can I? Not in the sense of biological, but physically. I know I am incapable of aiding my child. That already I'm too close to Snow to hope otherwise. Therefore, the only thing I can do is pretend ignorance.

I'm silent for more than five minutes, fumbling over this piece of familiarity. The director heaves a great sigh after the time that passes is too much to edit out. They shout around that a new take of the interview will be set. Leon stumbles over, not looking as annoyed or as tired as the others, smooths the folds of my dress back down and lightly pulls my shoulders back up to normal height.

"One more try, okay?" he says.

_Words_, I tell myself. "It's the sixteenth try, already." It's an effort to pry my fingers from my stomach. I pick up the drink of water next to me and gulp it down. Just for something to do. Hoping it'll unstick the glue that plasters my throat closed. I watch absently as Caesar kindheartedly talks down the frustrated cameramen

"Just..." Leon starts, then breaks off to take the empty glass in my hand and carefully set it aside. He looks around before squatting down to my height in front of the chair, both of his hands setting on the armrests and caging me in. "How did you get through your past interviews?"

"Cinna," I immediately tick off, remembering the way he told me to pretend I'm telling him and not all the other people out there snooping into my life. "He told me to pretend I'm talking to a friend."

"And when Cinna wasn't there to help you?" Leon presses.

I have to think about it for a moment. "Peeta. He was always there to step in when I couldn't speak."

Something in Leon's face shifts. The lines across his forehead smooth and I want to know why. I _should_ know. I'm a hunter. I notice everything. Analyze my prey before I shoot them. Then I'm struck with how much I compare Leon with an enemy. I shouldn't trust him, I know that. Any of the– no, stop. Don't fall into the world of untrust and hopelessness. Not now. I have to grit my teeth to hear Leon's words.

"Pretend that you're talking to Peeta. The camera is your messenger, but really it's just you and him. He's your_friend_. He's there, waiting and listening, okay? Just picture him, and imagine what advice he would reply with or how he would react. Can you do that?"

I've never noticed how intense Leon's eyes are until he's tipping them up toward me. Part of him reminds me of Darius, another half just as a father. He seems older than I'd previously thought. I'm glad he didn't ask me to be nice, because I can't do that. Or charming and charismatic like Haymitch once demanded. There is no falseness he wants from me. He doesn't plainly point out that he wants me to lie, like Snow or Haymitch does. He earnestly says that I mean it in the lilt of his tone, but never directly says out loud that he wants me to do it.

A _friend_, Leon says. Peeta, my friend. Wouldn't it have been better if he said Gale, my best friend? Somehow I didn't think so. Peeta would pause to listen to anything I said. No matter if it was unimportant and it was absolutely no matter if he didn't want to hear it or if he would be angered by it. Guilt torches in the pit of my stomach, heaps of it surfacing through the turmoil of nerves my body has already been reduced to. My face grows hard. He'd listen. Gale would interrupt to argue and yell. Which is what I'd do if I was hearing something I hated; standing up for what he knows is right. But Peeta would _listen_ to me, wait for me to finish, then somehow, in his odd and annoying way piece together an argument that makes me see his way flawlessly.

When the camera begins to roll again, Leon retreats to the back of the room. The adrenaline pounds in my ears, hands quivering under the stress of the lie Snow wants me to pronounce, and I look to Caesar.

_A friend, _I tell myself. Over and over. Peeta is my friend. Guilt nips at the pit of my stomach at the suggestion of such a pure relationship between us. But it is quickly smothered by the sureness of how I feel about him now. My lips feel like plastic when I force them into a smile to go with one of the jokes Caesar laughs over that I have not even heard.

Picture Peeta. It's harder than it should be. I can't quite form it correctly. Every time I try it's askew, distorted, not good enough. His crystalline eyes are the first thing to come in focus, just as I give a stiff wave to the camera. They are intent in mine, his fingers dovetailing my own, squeezing them whenever my voice would catch. And as the same line Caesar used the last time spills out into the open, I draw in a long breath.

"Yes," I tell him, my voice louder. Peeta will want to know how the baby is fairing, I reason. He's a good person. Pure. Always concerned for others, and his child will be no different. The least I could do is respect that, since I can neither relate or compliment this trait. "It's getting stronger everyday, I can feel it kicking and moving around most of the time."

Caesar looks elated that I've found my voice. "Oh! That's just fantastic. Strong little thing, isn't it?"

The statement is so innocent, yet so eerily similar to Snow's own words that I'm momentarily ripped from my carefully constructed image of Peeta. Caesar notices my paling cheeks. "But of course, not too strong," he somehow manages to say, his grin flashing with concern. "Can't have it bruising that adorable little bump of yours."

Adorable? That is not what I thought of it at all. Every word I want to say is tinged with hate and horridly hidden dry humor, that my morbid mind somehow enjoys. Leon catches my eye as I struggle to pick myself out of the swell of emotions inside me. He mouths _friend. _My hands, clasped jointly in my lap, wring together until it hurts. I take a moment to feel the pinch of my nails, savoring the knowledge that I can pick out those pinpricks of pains from everything else.

I imagine that one of the hands is Peeta's. The smile is wiry, but there. "Adorable?" I ask, feigning concern of my own. "I'm a whale."

"Nonsense! The moment I saw you I could hardly hold back a sigh of admiration. I'm sure the whole nation would agree," says Caesar. "Can't you just imagine Peeta fawning over her?" he asks, turning to the camera.

He jokes more on that, an attempt to overcome my gap of silence. The man even goes as far as faking a few things of what he thought Peeta would say, as he pretends to wipe his forehead clear of sweat, obvious fake tremors in his hands as he goes about touching my stomach. I'm severely glad, for the first time in my life, that I'm wearing a dress, and not a shirt, so that he can't insist the fabric to be pulled aside for everyone to see. The thought is repelling enough that, considering this tiny piece of relief among all the horror, it is tolerable to have a Capitol accented, partially alien man touch me.

There isn't much seriousness–or participation, of my part–in our talk about the roughness in pregnancy, and inevitably, the coming parenthood. He expresses congratulations. Assures me that everyone is so glad I didn't miscarry and that the Games gave him a right scare, but were so, so, _so_ thrilling!

It's almost entertaining to see Caesar Flickerman, the eternal host of the Huger Games, with his painted face and sparkly suit, acting like an over excited child again. His grin dimly reminds me of Prim, which might be a slip of my sanity, or just proves how much I miss her. Nonetheless, I'm glad that he's the one doing this, making me comfortable, and not Snow or some other utterly intolerable person.

That all changes, the second he brings up what really matters. "So... I guess I should take a moment to welcome you back," he says "I confess for the whole of Panem, I think, when I say that I didn't expect to see you back here again."

"Neither did I." No one can miss the pain in my voice, so I force myself to sit straighter. The taunt muscles in my back screech in protest, like nails on a chalk board, and my shoulders droop. People have to believe me. "It wasn't a part of my original plan," I murmur. My breath comes out hard, hot, scalding across my lips. "But now that I'm here, Snow and I have been reaching similar understandings. He's been helping me."

Snow will laugh at the sight of me painting him up as the good guy, even if my voice sounds so choked it couldn't be anything but a lie. It actually carries a lilt of truth, though, and I'm hoping that's enough. He made me healthy again, _and_ he's been feeding me, on top of giving me all the drugs I ask for. That's all true, I suppose, he _has_ been helping me in some sense.

In the silence that follows my statement, I see the lines form across Caesar's forehead, and suddenly Peeta is leaping back into my thoughts. Where was he now? Will he be pushing through a crowd of people to see me on the screen later today, when this is aired? Will he reach out to touch me, only to find the cold, hard glass of the television? Will he know when I'm lying? Will everyone know? For right now, that exceeds my wildest hopes. If he knows when I'm lying and the rebels know, than I have failed my promise to Snow. I've failed the impossible, just like any human being. But at least as I'm beaten, or drugged, or tortured, I can hold faith in the fact of the rebels still continuing to fight.

The hope of that runs through me like the morphling they give me in the hospital, and it duals the pain of the last few weeks. The last few _hours_ of trembling knees and overcoming my uncertainty, unfairness, fear, anger, and guilt.

"Why don't you explain those understandings to us?" suggests Caesar. "Help us sort a few things out."

I nod, then take my time before speaking, but even still with all those extra moments to gather myself, I know Peeta could have done it better. "Snow and I may have not seen eye to eye over the past year or so." Begin with honesty, build my strength. "But we've agreed on one thing."

My mind flickers, an attempt to shut down. I try to wring my hands, feel the bite of my nails, let the pain bring me back down. It doesn't work. My fingers glide shakily over my brow, then press into the spot on my stomach where the child always seems to kick. Nothing happens. Panic ensues, vocal cords contract as my heart rapidly pounds.

In one last desperate endeavor my eyes fly around, searching for something to pull me back down. Something to hold onto, to grasp as real. They land on Leon again, and he's got this light behind his eyes that, for a moment, even _that _reminds me of Prim. They're not cornflower blue, or girlish, or sweeter than any mixture of berry juice, but they are something.

Then he ruins my moment of clarity, reminding me about why I hate everything. His hand motions to the camera, his lips move in a silent plea. _Be my Mockingjay. _Like everyone else. He's no better than Haymitch, or Snow, or the districts. A foul taste starts to blossom in my mouth, the blood turning stale, and I swallow thickly, my eyes slowly revolving back to the lens. Looking straight through the whole of Panem. Every single person that will be looking back inevitably seeing the truth of my eyes.

What really moves me to speak, wasn't Leon or Peeta or Caesar, not even Prim in of herself. It's the image of the little girl with black braided pig tails, being shot in the face during the riot of District 3.

Leon was right. I have to choose. If I don't I'll end up dying with no words of anything in this rebellion. I would be an empty symbol. They won't stop until someone wins me over, and even then afterward, some sides will be fighting for my presence at their side. I have to be someones Mockingjay, or else I'll just be selfishly, stupidly pushing aside problems and I can't afford to be blind anymore. No, not just for _me_, but no one can afford me to fall into denial. Not with so many people depending on me.

And in this one moment pause, I choose the side I want to support. I'll be the little girls Mockingjay. Hers and not Snow's or the rebels, or Leon's. She didn't ask anything of me, every. Yet I felt responsible, and the guilt inside me bucks to the surface, influencing the decision. Whose Prim could she have been? What mother had to witness that? Where was the little girl's father? Was he the one that drew my eyes to the square in the first place, giving out that deranged cry of agony? If District 12 was not already destroyed, killed by me, how could I condone that sort of thing happening to the people that I would recognize?

If anything, I can't let the needless death continue. I can't take anymore guilt. I have to _try_.

"What hope do we have?" I ask, addressing the nation. "What are you hoping for as a result of this war? We all know about the Dark Days. Everyone has learned about them. Do you remember the results?" My arm suddenly files up, gesturing around me, wildly, my mind sidetracked with images of Rue, a spear through her stomach. Of Clove, her head crushed by a rock. Of Seeder's harsh last living moments. "The Hunger Games. The Capitol. All the things that you hate now. That was the result of that war. The same war that's happening now, as it goes spiraling out of control."

I feel the atmosphere around me change drastically. Thick, heavy layers of uneasy paint the air, weighing on my shoulders, but I don't feel its burden. In fact, I breathe easier, freed by the honesty in my words. The chance to speak as I will.

"I don't really... I'm not sure I'm following..." says Caesar, after a moment of pause.

"It's no secret how tenuous our condition is in this country," I tell him. My eyes turn to his. "In this chaos, people are going to forget why this whole thing was started. They're going to start hating, just like last time, and they have already _started_ killing without thought. Both sides. We're training kids to hate, before they can even walk. But we started this war to end the Hunger Games. To _save_ those same kids. And now we're poisoning them, so even if they are free, this kind of war, this crazy, frantic, unorthodox war is going to end up leaving them worse off than from where we started. If the rebels ever did win, what would those kids do with the smoking remains of our nation? What if they end up reversing it? What if they end up worse than the Capitol ever seemed to us in the beginning?"

My fingernails send pangs through my hands as they pry into the silk covered arm rest. "We can't fight like this." I'm not technically forbidding the rebellion, but now I can see Leon's reasoning clearer than day. There's a reason the Hunger Games were started after the Dark Days. Someone wanted control. They needed something cruel and unheard of to capture the citizens with fear and seize their loyalty. So what if the remaining rebels of this war, that win, turn to a similar method? Will they be bitter, hating, battered people just as Leon claimed them to be?

Logically, there will be new people. Children and newborns to repopulate the earth, after all this death, yet the argument is frail. Who's raising them? The broken people. They'll be growing broken children. Children that can be corrupted so easily, it's nearly criminal. Look at the kids that kill each other in the Hunger Games. They don't want to, not usually, and they know better, but even so old they can be morphed into something they shouldn't be. The morals of the Capitol children is so horrifying disfigured it's sickening.

I think of Prim and thought of someone like Haymitch raising her. Surely she wouldn't be the same. If all those years ago, Peeta didn't give me that bread or that hope, then we could have been in the community home where the red angry marks of someones hand would imprint our cheeks. Or the little girl, who is the sponsor of my Mockingjay career, who could have been just as sweet as boiling sugar. How could she have been deformed by the influence of battered parents?

What if these brokenly raised children restart the Hunger Games? I may not care about them really, or Leon very much at all, and even less, his son, but I know what it is like to fear a reaping. I've seen the result of the Games, and felt it myself. If I _had_ intentionally started this war, than I know it wouldn't have been out of pure hate and spite for the Capitol. It would have been out of my pure _desire_ to end the Games, the death, and most importantly, the loss.

Like I said; so that no one would ever have to feel the way I did when I heard Prim's name called. So people don't have to be like me, after their fathers' are killed in the mines that he was forced to work in, to save his family of the impending dark cloud of starvation that hangs over the people of District 12. So people like fragile little Rue don't have to die in the Games, all for the entertainment of others.

My words are soft, I have to use every amount of my willpower still within me to lie. My tongue flips uselessly the first try, but I grit my teeth. Use my breath to move my lips. "If everybody doesn't lay down their weapons–and I mean, as in _very_ soon–it's all pointless. There's no use for either of our efforts." _But, _I add silently, still supporting the rebels in thought, _there will be other chances, and other ways._ The last few words come tumbling after. "I'm calling for a ceasefire. On everything. We have to stop this before it goes too far."

Those words nearly get stuck in my throat. At this point, with only minor victories for the rebels, a ceasefire could only result in the return to our previous status. Or worse. Somehow, things need to change, like our fighting tactic or some sort of treaty, but not ceasefire. Never that.

"And I'm sure everyone will take that to heart," Caesar says. "I would trust you any day, Katniss." I try not to lose composure. I nod my head forward, and he must see that because soon he's bidding a goodbye and the camera crew is closing the shot. It'll need editing, but it's done with. This is the only thing I can do. It's already beyond my reach to hope this worked.

With a sense of failure, my head drops into my hands. I'm slightly disappointed I couldn't find someway to tell Peeta. People are moving around me, voices echo in the room but they seem like nothingness to me. So insignificant. Two soft hands guide me to my feet and out the door, and there is absolutely no question who it is as his euphonious voice calls over my head that he will report me to the hospital once more.

Carpet shifts under my feet, and the second we're in the elevator he grabs my wrists and pries them away from my face before enveloping me into a fierce embrace. Thorns, that feel like the icy, seething claws of a mutt, prick the edges of the organs inside my stomach, brought on merely by this touch. Four months of nothing but frigid doctor hands, and the unfeeling faces of the prep team as they made me over, plus that, the lingering disgust from Snow's fingers tracing along my veins, and this is the closest to human contact I've had. It's an immense pressure, to have this, and for a moment the mood swings consume me, overtake my usual defense. I don't deserve a hug. I shouldn't want one. I should be strong. But to the hormones it doesn't matter that I've just become a traitor. Doesn't even compute that people will be building accusations against me once they view this tape. So I return the hug just as ferociously, trying to remember the last time I hugged someone back and meant it so heavily.

"Thank you," he whispers in my ear, just as he pulls away. "For trying."

It wasn't for him. I shake my head, intend on telling him so, but there is no more time left to reply, because the second the elevator stops the doors open to reveal two men waiting behind them. Their faces are dead serious, grueling, and a shot of instant fear returns to my veins. Like finger trailing down my back, I remember that I'm in the Capitol. Everywhere I turn is deceit, evil, corrupt. My guard should never be down.

My arms wrap around myself, and Leon straightens up immediately, his once blank expression morphing into a pinch of distress. "Head Peacekeeper Brock," he says, obviously perplexed, as he gives the taller man a low bow. "I didn't expect to see you here, so far from District Eleven."

"Snow asked of my return," says the gray breaded man. His face is angular, and his eyes are a dark piercing brown. Something about his caramel colored skin makes him seem even taller and broader shouldered than he really is and as I stare at him, unabashed, Leon and the other, less important Peacekeeper at Head Peacekeeper Brock's side, avoid looking the man straight in the face at all costs.

"Of course," Leon murmurs.

"This is the prisoner?" His dark eyes find mine. They are ominous to the point that I'm not sure if he's intentionally glaring or if it's only natural. They drop to my stomach, then quickly back up, before his lips are curling at the corners. "Not very much to her, is there?"

"Was there ever?" muses Leon. I can't tell if he's frightened or merely trying to blend in. When I make an effort to catch his eyes for the answer, it fails. He refuses to look away from a tile on the floor in front of us. What makes me really apprehensive is that his hands are behind his back as he keeps his head bowed to the man, and I've only seen Leon–straight faced, professional Leon–do this once before. In front of Snow.

"Was there something you needed?" Leon asks the Head Peacekeeper. "Or should I be apologizing that we've stepped into your path?"

Brock unexpectedly gives off a loud, booming laugh and I jump under my skin, while the two other Peacekeepers barely retain clear flinches of their arms. "Always respectful, Mr. Dane, aren't you? Never a toe out of line in the academy, and earning your stripes out in the field of District 3 before half your class even graduated. It's a pity about your wife, got the memo just last night. She was a pretty little thing."

Leon's head only droops a fraction of an inch lower, and no reply comes.

"You've been dismissed of your babysitting job," Brock finally gets around to saying, still entirely amused. For a moment that statement numbly enters my ears. It sinks in with a trill of fear jading itself in my heart. This burly man is another Head Peacekeeper. Of District 11 to be exact. Does that mean District 11 has rebelled? Or has Snow been calling every district's Head Peacekeeper to the Capitol to help him in war efforts?

More importantly, am I to be passed over to him? I remember the one day I spent in District 11 on the Victory Tour. The Peacekeepers, even then, so early on in this trouble, had their guns out, ready to shoot, as they lined the square. I recall the old man shot. For _whistling_. This Head Peacekeeper can't be known for his kindness. All the evidence I need of that is in the Peacekeepers' avid regard for him.

So when his face returns to its ominous, dark frown from before, and he says, "Snow wants to speak with you. You'll find him in his office," I get a strange twinge of regret for ever thinking that Leon was the worst possible option I've had to endure.

The blood drains from Leon's face, and he bids the men farewell. What can I do but watch as he leaves, strutting down the hall, without so much as a glance at me? Maybe Snow already knows that my attempt was too weak to matter. Maybe he's sent this new Head Peacekeeper to bring about those 'unpleasant means of my obedience' just as he warned.

"Tie her," Head Peacekeeper Brock commands. The younger one leaps at me, struggles with me, doing just that. As the ropes shred at my skin, I try to futilely loosen them. Brock catches this, pauses, and stares at me. I feel as though he can see straight through me; note the fear, the sadness, the anger. My vulnerability. His bark of laughter chills me, and he turns to the lackey Peacekeeper at his side. "Take her to the cell with all the others. I want her to get a good picture of what's ahead of her. Make sure she has something to eat, and a shower, and clean clothes."

Others? Like Johanna? But who else? Could Cinna be there? Effie or my prep team? Who could they be holding? I'm not able to contemplate that very far, as I'm not sure how to feel about it and hardly a second later, he turns to leave, then pauses, and suddenly swings back to me, a heavy hand placed over my stomach. "Savor every second you have left," Head Peacekeeper Brock says.

I don't know what he means. Did he mean to tell me that they're actually going to kill me? Would they give me that? But no, his grave amused voice meant so much more. Implored a greater agony that will be coming my way. Something I may not be able to brave through, like I have everything else.

I may have been trapped in the Capitol for the past month but now my true torment begins.


	4. Chapter Four

_**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

_A/N: I just couldn't let her go. And I hope she's not OC, but I thought I got her down well enough, considering things. I think this chapter is very important for Katniss. Thank you everyone who has been feeding me all this wonderful feedback. It's what keeps me writing you new chapters. Thanks for you reading everyone. Sorry for typos. Reviews make the world go around. -Taryn(:_

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Chapter Four

"Make it quick," the female Peacekeeper says as I step into the shower. I hurriedly peel off my dress, slip my feet out of the shoes, and hand the pile out to the Peacekeeper. Shivering against the cold, I slip toward the silver knobs. This is the absolutely least fancy shower I've ever seen in the Capitol, with its dank feel and concrete surroundings. Peeta said something about their showers once, I remember.

I already miss the covering the dress had served to me. My hands rest against my bump. Skin feeling clammy. Aside from the anticipation of the coming days, for the ugly means of my obedience, and Head Peacekeeper Brock, I marvel at the feel of the water. Warm and clean as it rushes over my grimy skin. It's been a long time since they've let me shower. There are no fancy, confusing buttons. Just a bottle of soap that foams in my hair and leaves my skin feeling slippery. It was that Head Peacekeeper who ordered this for me? Why? Such a luxury as this in a prison is beyond my wildest imaginings, or is he just trying to soften me? Just like Leon? Or am I getting more paranoid the longer I stay in the Capitol?

"Out!" calls the Peacekeeper, and passes in a cloth towel, followed by underclothes and a pair of cotton pants with a matching shirt. My skin tingles under the clean fabric of the garment and my fingers fumble with the string of the waistband, pained to find a comfortable fit. Quickly, I wring out my hair, then braid it with effortlessly fingers, tossing the wet mass behind my back.

As I push open the glass-planed door that served as an entrance to the shower, I stare into its foggy, morphed, shimmering surface, recognizing a pair of gray eyes. The rest, unfortunately, I don't recognize at all.

The Peacekeeper looks at me skeptically once I step out, clean and dressed. When I reach for the shoes that the prep team had given me, the Peacekeeper points to a pair of worn loafers instead. I slip my feet in, discovering they're nearly three sizes too big. "You shouldn't have wasted so much time on your hair," the Peacekeeper says. "It's likely they'll just cut it all off."

I'm not entirely upset about losing hair, not if it's in comparison to losing a limb. "Until then, I might as well keep it tame," I reply, surprising even myself when my tone comes out without shaking. It's been beyond twelve hours since my last dose of morphine and though I crave a little, I'm not about to break down.

The female Peacekeeper, an elderly woman with muscular arms and a hard jaw, squints at me. She grunts, turns away, and for an instant I think she's assenting. Then the Peacekeeper turns rapidly and backhands me hard across my cheek, hitting me with such force my neck painful snaps to the right. My face stinging, she grabs me by the hair at the crown of my head. The floor rushes up to meet my knees as the woman pulls me over to a table set near the shower and she takes a pair of rusted scissors and haphazardly snips away the base of my braid. My useless black hair, still weaved together as one, falls to the concrete and all I can think is that it's only the first piece of myself that I'm going to lose.

"You'll learn to hold that tongue of yours," the Peacekeeper says as she drop me to the ground. I bite back a reply, pressing a palm to the throbbing cheek. I watch as she flicks my braid into a trash bin nearby and with it goes the fancy dress and flats.

To regain some of my dignity I get awkwardly to my feet. "Come get her!" the female Peacekeeper yells and I watch the familiar escort of Peacekeepers reappear as if they'd been waiting just outside the door.

I shove away their hands. This is something I can do on my own. Control, of some measure. It isn't much, not when I have a hand print searing across my face and new hair, with jagged uneven edges that drip water along the very edge of my jaw. The men don't object though and form around me as they lead me out into the hall once more. We pass several corridors. A few more flights of stairs until the place begins to smell musty, as if fresh air rarely penetrated this far within the walls. That, or we're underground again. After about three or four floors, we've met a place of only blank white walls and floors. No doorways. Nothing but white.

They stop me at the end of the last hallway. One of the Peacekeepers steps before the smooth white wall and we wait for about three seconds before it slips open, seamlessly, as if there has always been a door there. It reveals a wide room just the same white as the hall behind us. There is no furniture, but two or three benches, a bucket in the corner, and harsh, bright lights overhead.

"I'm supposed to be fed," I remind the Peacekeeper near my right.

"Funny that," he says coolly, and gives me a shove inside the room.

Before the wall shuts at my back I turn and lock eyes with one of the other men out there. "Is this the right cell?" I ask. They turn away. "Where are the others?" The wall falls back into place, leaving me in this cell all alone. Nothing but white walls staring me in the face. Panicked, I throw myself into the wall that has replaced the door's opening. "When will I see Leon again!" I shout, futilely. My hollow, sad voice echoing back at me. "Where's Snow!"

I hear a laugh. I whip around leaning into the fragment of the wall that I know to be a doorway. It's not a laugh I recognize. I thought when Head Peacekeeper Brock said others he meant people I knew. The laughter comes from my left. I stand, listening intently as it turns into hacking, and wait for my eyes to adjust to the brightness of the room. My cheek throbs dully when I press a finger to it.

The sounds are coming from a shadowed figure laying underneath one of the benches.

With my fingertips reluctantly pulling away from the wall, I progress toward the man.

The hoarse cackling from earlier starts up again among his coughing. Two feet away, I crouch. Hair falls in front of my eyes and I flick it away, annoyed. It only falls back in place. The man I find has hair as equally gone as Johanna. Face so battered that even if I _did_ know him, I could never be capable of finding his true identity underneath the numerous oozing gashes, swollen eyes, and bruises covering him from chin to hairline.

"Hello?" I say.

The man stops laughing all of sudden, wheezing. His eyes find mine and he sits up so fast his forehead cracks against the bottom of the bench. It is then that I decide it's safe to approach him. I help him out from underneath there, though he's about three times my size. Once sitting on top of the bench, out of the shadow, I realize I do know this man. "Mayor Undersee?"

When he smiles I see he's missing multiple teeth as well. Though in District 12 I'd always thought Mayor Undersee on the rounder side than most people, he's frightfully frail, now.

I let myself fall to the bench at his side. I touch the lash marks visible on his shoulder through his shirt. "I thought you had died in District 12," I murmur. "With your family.."

Mayor Undersee's wheezing turns into laughter again. A broken, insane mirth that makes me cringe. I turn away from him, elbows on my inner thighs, hunched. My eyes trace the ceiling. Already I know that four months living in this cell, receiving all the torture that he has, this is not truly Mayor Undersee as I remember him. He's been broken. He let President Snow break him. Possibly it was the weakness the mayor felt once he'd lost his home, his district, his people.

The same grief I am feeling.

With a bark and cough Mayor Undersee topples backward off the bench. I try to catch him, my reflexes fast enough to get a good hold of his shirt, but he's too heavy for me. I wince, but the man goes on hacking, rolling around, until once more he's underneath the bench. Feet kicking mine. It takes me a moment to realize he's hiding under there. On purpose.

He's weeping, too. Tears for Madge? For his wife? Afraid that maybe I'm here to cause him and his own more pain than my escape from the arena has already done?

"Mr. Undersee," I start, voice cracking. I pull myself off the bench onto my knees, bent over at the waist to peer at him underneath the bench. "I'm sorry." The man doesn't react to my words. Shows no sign of understanding or appreciating how much I ache right along with him. Nothing. But I have to satisfy myself with it.

Sleep draws at me sometime later. Hours? Minutes? All I know is that I've been up all night filming that interview. That is possibly being aired at this very moment, and that the day before this one I had spent it walking among the ashes of my home. There are no beds, only the benches and since it seems Mayor Undersee has claimed the first one, I choose the one right next to it, stretching out across its surface and slipping easily into fitful sleep.

I dream of Prim. Buttercup is with her and Lady, all of them in the Meadow. She's made both of them crowns of flowers. Bright red poppy flowers that Buttercup kneads to compost and Lady munches on gratefully. Her laughter rings out when I step up to the edge of the swaying meadow grass. I want to go to her, but for some reason, in a dream-like way, I know I shouldn't disturb her happiness.

I choose to sit at the edge of the meadow, watching her silently. Then the earth slides away and I'm in the arena, lost within the tunnels. The sound of Peeta's torturous screams mirroring an insane, loud, thundering laughter. Hacking laughter that makes me jerk from sleep in an instant, sweating, very nearly falling over the side of the bench.

Sure enough Mayor Undersee is laughing. _What is so funny? _I almost snap. Instead I roll off the bench, catching myself at the very last moment, then stand straight. I have to pee, badly. And my stomach is gurgling hungrily. I pace next to the place in the wall where I know there a door to be, for what seems like hours.

Do they not feed prisoners? A panic rises in me. _The kid needs to eat just as much as me, _I think. Doesn't Snow realize he'd lose everything he holds over my head if he no longer has the baby? My life against me isn't enough. I'm too stubborn. If he chooses to let the baby slip from his hands, than he has nothing. Surely he knows that?

For what it's worth Mayor Undersee does get some rest time. I'm relieved for the silence. I find my way back to my bench, laying on my back to stare at the ceiling. Unfortunately that proves to be an uncomfortable position. I turn to my right, staring at the blank white walls.

I have to stop blaming myself. I know it's true. The fact that Mayor Undersee sits broken nearby only strengthens that resolve. Recent tragedy can't make me breakable. I must accept that District 12 is gone. Partly my fault, yes, but not entirely. And concerning Mayor Undersee, I must take responsibility for his unhinged mind as well. All the bruises Johanna endures. Maybe she'd have been better off without her sharp wit, but I won't completely absolve my blame in that either.

All of it; accept it. And move on. Rise from it smarter, harder and unbreakable.

Why does that seem so hard? To say and think it is easy. How could I ever truly accept it? In time, I suppose the pain of it would fade, just like the loss of Rue has faded. I just need to know it will fade. District 12 is lost, I'm not. The baby isn't. Peeta and Prim aren't. There are still things to fight for.

And I won't stop fighting. Not ever.

I'm so lost in my focus of forgiving myself that I almost miss the sound of the door opening. I sit up in a whirl. At the door is two Peacekeepers holding a plate of food and pills. They place it on the floor, close the door and are gone. Eagerly I go to the food, scarfing down the first hot roll my fingers find, not bothering with the melted butter in the dish beside it. There is a good amount of food here. Delectable food.

Without thinking about it I turn to the sleeping Mayor Undersee and shake him awake. "Madge?" is a soft, nearly inaudible hack from him immediately after waking. Then he seems to fall away again, completely, and his hands shake when I offer him the soup on my tray.

We sit and eat together, licking our fingers, drinking every last drop of orange juice given to us. Nothing but the pills remain on the tray when we're done and I poke through them suspiciously. None of them seem dangerous. At District 3 I once refused to take any medicine for four days, until a doctor came in and gave me a very long, very severe speech about the proper vitamins and minerals for pregnancy. After that I'd never refused a pill or needle. Now, I am cautious, but I figure they can't do anything to harm the kid, so I take them.

Mr. Undersee is content to lay in the middle of the room, spread eagle, staring at the ceiling. I retreat to my bench, curling on my side as much as my abdomen allows. Again, I think of District 12. _I must forgive. _Forget. Forgetting sounds easier than forgiving. And maybe if I wasn't reminded by it by Mayor Undersee and President Snow so often, I could forget it quite easily in the light of other trouble. Too bad, they are here.

In an effort to remember it in one go and let it free the next, I recall everything I can about District 12. The Seam where I grew up, where my father grew up. A place that seemed more home than the Victor Village ever was. Greasy Sae at the Hob. _The Hob._ The walk to school, a school I've never really enjoyed, but most of my memories of Peeta come from there before the Hunger Games got involved. The back porch of Madge's house, selling her strawberries, seeing her pretty, frivolous dresses. Laughs I've shared with Gale when trading among the district as a whole. _Let it go. All of it. _And for a moment, I don't want to. I should hold onto happy memories, shouldn't I? No, not if I want to be unbreakable.

By the time the door opens a second time I decide not to react. I remember the shell I put myself in after I thought Prim was dead during the Hunger Games. The one Peeta stripped away effortlessly. Well I throw it back up quickly, when I hear footsteps tumble into the room. I turn, expecting to meet a Peacekeeper taking me to the torture chamber, but instead, it's not a Peacekeeper at all.

"Katniss?"

"Madge?"

Mayor Undersee roars up with laughter at the sound of his daughter's name. In fact his hand reaches vaguely at the girl's shoes, standing some two paces from the closed doorway. I don't know what to say. I sit up slowly, staring as much as she stares at me. Her eyes drop to the bulge of my abdomen. I can see the confusion in her bright blue eyes, the wisps of blonde hair falling over her forehead in matted tangles. Sweat pours down her face and neck. The only thing I see wrong with her is the burn scars running up the length of her hands and arms; they are old though, and healing.

"I thought... you were dead."

"I thought _you_ were dead!" she says, and is smiling softly. In a slow, limping way she moves to her father who is laid across the floor and Madge nudges him softly. "It's okay, dad. I'm back." Mayor Undersee pays as much attention to his daughter as he did me, but he's no less resisting with her as she helps him to his bench. She sits heavily next to him, wincing, drawing her knee to her chest and rubbing her ankle.

I'm too surprised to find the right words. "You thought I..?"

"Well we didn't know," Madge's soft, intelligent voice breathes. She pulls the leg of her pants up a little to reveal a purplish ankle, swollen three times the size it should be. I'm surprised she can even walk on it. "You see," she explains, finally tearing her eyes from the limb and meeting my gaze, "they came to get us at the last moment. The Capitol I mean, because President Snow had suspicions about my family. He thought my father was apart of the undercover plans behind his back. Since Heavensbee and his associates have either been killed or killed themselves to keep their secrets, he needed my father, to get the answers from.."

"But he wouldn't tell." There is no question in my voice. I know that disobedience had its costs but looking at Madge's father as he is now seems like the mayor, the man I'd once revered as a child as a powerful adult, is nothing but a thrall. An empty.. dog, or some other animal easy to domesticate. "Was he?" I ask. "Apart of Heavensbee's group of rebels within the Capitol?"

Madge gnaws on her chapped and cracked lip. "My father used to call me Magpie, did you know?"

_Yes, _I can hear her saying. As if agreeing with my assumption Mayor Undersee bursts into a new fit of coughing and laughter. Madge cringes. I feel bad for her. Awful, really, for her to go through this. To have to watch her father crumble into something unrecognizable. I know what it is like to have to care for a parent that is incapable. That is there, in reach, touchable, but infuriatingly _not there._

_Another reason not to let them take my sanity, _I think, a hand pressing into my abdomen. I won't be a mother like my own. Can't let the kid feel what I have or Madge has. I want to be like Hazelle, for one moment, a mother I can look up to. A woman who was there, even when she lost her husband and had more than just one mouth to feed. Even Cecelia I find myself remembering. She couldn't have possibly agreed to die for me because she simply hates the Capitol; it must have been because underneath she was hoping I'd find a way to make this country into a place where her three sweet sons could live happily.

Madge has noticed my distraction. And just like everything I've ever shared with Madge it is in a thankfully silent understanding acknowledgment. Just as we sat at a lunch table for years in school, ignoring the fact when other girls ask if Gale and I are more than friends, shrugging off the rude things they say about her when they're jealous of her money. Those few times I sat in her house at the piano or in her room during my one year as victor before the Victory Tour, voided of questions about Peeta and I and without comment on her sickly mother in the other room. Or those times when I'd think of a Mockingjay and she'd come to mind, because of the gift she gave me.

Without word, in only the way Madge Undersee can, she gets up from her father's side, joins me on my bench and sits at my side. Our shoulders barely touching, silent. A comforting, undemanding silence, where in a matter of a few minutes, I find she's silently crying. I'm hugging her. And then tears start to fall from my own eyes. All the tears I've been holding in for four long, _long_ months.

By the time we are both cried out, I'm left feeling better. The guilt and built up emotions in me, gone. Madge's hand momentarily rests on my stomach, before wiping at her face. And just like that, I find it's easy to let go. The tears are my goodbye to all those memories and the painful ones, too; of Gale's whipping, the day in the school yard with Peeta's ugly face, when Prim was reaped. All the good and bad, leaving me empty. I have never been happier to feel that way.

Exhausted already, Madge curls up on the third bench in the room falling asleep immediately. I lay out as well, listening to her father's hazy gasps for air and her calm, soothing breaths. Eventually, I slip into dream, thinking, _she really has been a friend all along._

When I wake it's because of the sound of the door opening. I'd dreamed of the time Chaff had been thrown into the fountain of acid, so when I hear the door, for some reason it resembles the spiders clicking. I throw myself onto my feet, dizzy by the movement, falling back against the bench immediately. Head level again, I see that they've brought me the same tray of food and pills. This time I wait to devour it by waking Madge and Mr. Undersee first. There's enough to split, but not as much as these two starving prisoners need, nor me the pregnant one, either.

We eat sparingly. They eat the easy to digest food; soup, vegetables, liquids. I take the few morsels of meat, bread and nuts that are there. The pills I eat with one scoop of my hand and a sip of water. Madge gives me a questioning glance, but does not speak out on her uncertainties.

The day passes slow. I begin to wonder if they just want me to sit here for the rest of my life. Is this me learning my lesson? Them trying to break me by reintroducing these old friends into my life? It comes to a point that I'm so unsure of what's going on that I turn to Madge, inquiring where they had taken her before she got here.

"Oh," she says. I can hear a slightly dimmer chime in her voice than before. Like the memories have just added a weight of a hundred pounds onto her chest. "I was with Head Peacekeeper Brock."

"You know him?" I ask.

She nods. I can see she doesn't like him. Fears him. "Johanna... she usually never comes back for more than an hour and leaves for days. Head Peacekeeper Brock has a special hatred for her. She says it's because she spit in his face. I-I rarely go. Mostly it's just my father... and after my mother, when she stopped coming back.." Madge's eyes find the ceiling more interesting than my face. "They take you to this room. It has a one-way mirror in it, and you know there's others watching.. as he interrogates you. Head Peacekeeper Brock, that is. I never have the right answers, but he's only.." she gestures to her ankle.

"The burns..?"

"From District 12, the firebombs. The hovercrafts that dropped them came to get us, like I said. Except I had already tried running.." _to where? _"...the flames in the streets got at me before one of them pulled me back. We were flown here immediately. Unable to know what was going on, what had happened when the screen grew black during your Games."

"I'm sorry," I breathe, remembering what had happened; the snakes, Gloss' face and the axe, Enorbaria's blood bubbling lips. My head starts to ache a little.

"I don't blame you."

My eyes find her face. "You don't?"

"No. Why would I? You didn't drop those bombs. Snow did."

"But he did it because of me," I say. "Because I broke his rules."

"I don't blame you," she says again, end of discussion.

I'm perplexed a little by that, but I guess that maybe it's possible. Others might not blame me either.. I begin to logically think. All the guilt I'd felt previously seems ridiculous now. Would anyone from District 12 blame me? Knowing how much I loved my home.. no. Not really. I can blame myself plenty, but I've already let it go. Suddenly returning to my family and to other survivors of District 12, if there are any, doesn't seem so unbearable.

What does sound unbearable is being taken to this room Madge is speaking of. To be interrogated by Head Peacekeeper Brock. President Snow or doctors or Gamemakers, even other Peacekeepers observing it from the other side of that mirror.

I'm surprised to hear Madge speak of Johanna by name. I wonder if they've been spending all this useless, endless time together in this cell for the past month that I've spent laying in hospital beds. Knowing Johanna they wouldn't be on friendly terms, but I suppose mutual torture is enough to entitle a first name basis. For a minute, my mind snags on the fact that it seems a common thing for people to be coming and going. "Madge," I ask, "is there anyone else? That stays in here sometimes?"

"Yes," she says.

"Who?"

"I don't know their names, except, Darius." Madge sees my surprise and nods; showing she'd been equally displeased by it as myself. "There is another Avox always with him. Red haired too and she's tall."

"The Avox girl," the words slip out. Of course them. The two people who had severed both Peeta and I before the Quarter Quell even began. I don't know the Avox girl's name still, and that just seems to make it worse. I can't help but think this woman's always been at my expense. First, I don't help her when she begged for me. I stand and watch the Capitol kill the boy that was no doubt her lover and I let her wait on me throughout my Hunger Games. Now she's in here, somewhere, in a cell, all because Snow knows there's some sort of connection between us. And the connection is only the feeble lack of my compassion towards her.

Darius of course comes from an ugly memory. He did nothing but stand up for Gale and now he's here, too. Avox and prisoner. Not because he's such a spectacularly lacking Peacekeeper. It is because of me. For my insanity, just like his presence before the Games meant to be.

With that in thought, I begin to wonder if the Undersee's actually have anything to do with undercover rebel groups or are here, too, to punish me.

"There is someone else," Madge continues to say quietly, after my outburst. "The stylist. Cinna."

"Cinna's here?" I repeat. "Alive?"

"About a week ago, yes. I have not seen him since then."

"When will he come back?"

"There's no way to know," says Madge.

Once more, with that hopeful note, we let the silence of the white cell close around us. Lunch comes and goes. Madge's father starts cackling madly when we try to get him to speak. She spends a little time with him, holding his hand, saying things about her mother. I'm nodding off on my bench when she starts to hum under her breath.

I open my eyes, wide awake. "I know that song."

"You do?"

"I think.. will you sing it?"

"I don't know the words," Madge admits. "My mother used to hum it sometimes before she'd fall asleep or right after a dose of morphine. My father told me it was from her childhood.. that my aunt used to love the song. It used to soothe my mother when I'd hum it back, I thought it might help him, too."

"Oh," I say. I know the song from my own childhood, though. Madge starts up again and every tone makes me more sure it is the same one my mother loathed. _A necklace of rope... _I think vaguely to myself. I can't remember the other lyrics.

Dinner comes and goes. I can see some strength returning to Madge because of all the food provided to her. Though she's still too thin and her ankle worsening. Mayor Undersee is laughing so loudly that it's impossible to fall asleep afterward, even with a full stomach. I take to tapping my fingernails against the bench.

I think of Peeta. District 13. No doubt they've seen the interview by now. They know I'm pregnant. _He _knows. There are so many different things he could do and feel and say, that I'm unable to be sure how he will react. All I know is he must have loved and adored the child, instantly. Would have done the exact things that Caesar had acted out in humor. Fawned over me. Wanted to touch, feel the movements, everything Snow does.. I miss him so much, that I decide it is less painful not to think about him.

The sound of the door opening is swallowed by Mr. Undersee's laughter. The Peacekeepers footsteps somehow can be felt at the base of the bench I'm on, though, so I turn my eyes to them. "Come with us, Miss Everdeen," the bearded one says, voice muffled by the plate of plastic in front of his face.

I get up wordlessly, and Madge's hand finds mine, squeezing it momentarily, before I am out of reach. "Where are we going?" I ask.

"That is not for you to question."

"But I did."

The other Peacekeeper reaches out and roughly takes me by the arm. "We won't have any of your lip," he snaps.

Together the two drag me from the cell, out into the equally bright hallway. Aside the sounds of the Peacekeeper's footsteps and my dragging feet, I can hear the hollow, broken sound of Mayor Undersee's laughter ringing through the wall behind me. Reminding me. _Don't break._


	5. Chapter Five

_**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

_A/N: This one is probably one of the saddest/depressing/gag-worthy of the lot. I apologize for all the saddness. I promise if you stick with the story you'll find it beginning to get good again. I found two songs that helped me through this one that I thought maybe some of you might like; "Arms" by Christina Perri. A nice song that I like to imagine Katniss thinking of Peeta. And then, "Broken" by Seether ft. Amy Lee helped me through the gory bits. Thanks to everyone who has been reviewing I really love all of the praise. Sorry for typos. Thanks for reading. Enjoy. -Taryn(:_

_**P.S: I am writing a one-shot of a Peeta point of view. I don't know when it'll be posted or how long it'll be, but I'm working on one because of all your requests and your faithful reviews; you've earned it.**_

* * *

Chapter Five

After a short walk down the white hallway we enter a room just the same as the one Madge described to me. Inside, I'm thrown across a lifted table with restraints. My arms, shoulders, and legs are bound, the leather straps cutting into my flesh. The two Peacekeepers who have brought me here leave almost immediately, disappearing through a door next to a one-way mirror.

The lifted table is straight in front of the mirror and I stare at my reflection for a moment. Behind my image I imagine President Snow. Head Peacekeeper Brock. Leon, too? Maybe some of the Gamemakers whose arena I'd escaped? All of them angry at me.

The light in the room is dim. Not too bright, not black. The me staring back from out of the mirror isn't the same Katniss Everdeen I remember. Even the maternal girl from the interview is gone. I see a tired woman with bewildered grey eyes. Short, uneven hair bobbing around her face and a bruise clear across the left check, yellowing at the edges of veining purple.

I wonder what they're waiting for. Me to beg with them? Should I start thrashing and screaming? Or are they just taking their time to gather their means of a torture device? I imagine now, behind the mirror, not a room of chairs and soft drinks, but walls full of racks, overflowing with various different types and assortments of torture implements. Saws. Knifes. Axes. Needles. The more my thoughts wonder down this lane, panic blossoms inside my mouth like weeds. The infectious plant spreading down my throat, closing it tightly, thick with anticipation and fear.

My wait is over when the door opens. I recognize the gray beard and his sharp brown eyes first. Then, the loud trod of his feet as he approaches. His uniform is untouched, perfect. The expression on his face just as carefully done up. "Miss Everdeen," he says. "It is nice I've finally found the time to see you."

Head Peacekeeper Brock watches me, waiting for a reply, but I have none. I stare at him. He stares unflinchingly back. Shouldn't he be asking questions? I'm tired of these sorts of conversations, that just dance around the real meaning. Snow loves these talks more than it is worth. Not Brock. I can tell he's more practical. A little like me. Hard. Brutish. "Is there a reason I'm here?" I say, finally.

"I seem to be recalling a certain interview," says Brock. With a slow, steady pace he begins to move around me, behind my back, out of sight. I can hear sounds; wood clanking, metal clinking together, his footsteps. I watch him in the mirror, digging around inside a box I'd not noticed before. "President Snow made it clear that he wanted you to make the citizens believe in a ceasefire.."

"I did," I snap. "I did everything he told me to do."

"No, you didn't," says Brock. He stands up straight now. There's something in his hands, and I can't see it with his back facing the mirror. Blocked from view as he polishes it against the front of his uniform. "No one believed a word you said."

It's a knife. "That's not my fault. Snow could have given me a piece of paper to read from if he thought he could do better." My voice grows weaker the more steps the Head Peacekeeper takes toward me, from behind me, my eyes flying across the surface of the mirror.

There's a certain unbearable thing about watching someone stalk you from behind. I'm completely defenseless strapped to this table. I can't even turn my head to see him. "Miss Everdeen, be honest now. Do you really think a script would have helped? That your interview would have been anymore believable?"

"_Yes_," I insist. The word a breath of air.

Brock is standing just behind me now. The lifted table only blocks off his body a little past the bottom of his ribcage; the chest, shoulders and head all in view, hovering over mine in the reflection. He slides a finger down the length of the long, smooth knife before swinging it abruptly downward. I lurch against my restraints on instinct. A soft, gasp of noise escapes my mouth as the blade meets the surface of the table in a _squelch _of noise. Right next to my left ear.

"I'd cut off your lips, but Snow has ordered not to ruin your image. I've thought about it for a long time though and an ear isn't all that _necessary_. A little hair brushed over the right spot and the image is perfect again, right?"

"No." The flare of anger in his eyes lets me know that wasn't the right answer. The tip of the knife slides closer, the points cold bite kissing the lobe of my ear. I keep the cringe on the inside. I can't let him see my fear. Can't break. Won't let him scare me. "I'd rather have both ears," I consist to say.

Head Peacekeeper Brock is not impressed. I bury my teeth into my cheek at the sharp flick of the knife. Upward, making a shallow cut across my jaw and cheek. The blood wells and beads slowly, as I watch in the mirror, the crimson tears sliding across my neck. Silently rolling down the table. I shudder.

I recall the first time I thought I'd lose an ear. It was in my first Hunger Games after I blew up the Career's supplies. The mines had blown out one of my ear drums, leaving me deaf in it for the remainder of the Games. All the trouble I had adjusting to it and the fear of never hunting properly again, makes me dislike this whole situation even more. Part of me wonders if Brock had chosen this body part for this particular reason.

I'm not much of a healer, but I can't help and know that large physical trauma won't do the baby any good. Would Snow allow him to cause me this? Lots of blood loss results from a severed body part. Common sense tells me this. How much blood does it take to kill the baby? And me?

Head Peacekeeper Brock smiles at my eyes straining upward, to try to see him. In some other way aside from in the reflection. With back arcing away from table and limbs gritting against leather, I can almost see the top of his head, when he is suddenly pointing a finger over me.

I stare at the hand. Afraid to look at where it is indicating. Not sure if I should take my eyes off the other hand that contains the knife. However doubtful, I drop my body, face level with the mirror.. but it's not a mirror anymore. All of sudden the hazy, dark outline of my reflection and his is gone. In fact, not only is it not a mirror, it is a window. The see through side of the one-way mirror. I'm the one watching an interrogation.

Directly across me is Mayor Undersee. He's not struggling, not laughing. Only standing in the middle of a bright white room, looking lost. He whimpers as three Peacekeepers emerge and start to circle him. I can't hear what they're saying until Head Peacekeeper Brock walks out from behind me and flips a switch on the wall. The speakers awake with a _pop_.

"Do you wanna know what we did to your wife?" one of them taunts.

"How are you feeling, _Mayor_ Undersee?" another mocks.

The third only gives Mr. Undersee's shins a good, harsh kick. In his unsteady stagger to catch himself and a cleverly placed foot behind his heels he falls easily to the floor. Limbs painfully sprawled across the tiles. The Peacekeepers literally kicking him while he's down. Each blow a sound; a crack or sharp cry of pain or a jeer of laughter.

I try to turn my face to the ceiling. I can't watch this. Already my stomach withers. Unfortunately, Head Peacekeeper Brock returns to my side, using his two rough hands, fingers curling underneath the edge of my jaw. He rips my face around to meet his; the smile there is pleasant, for the first time I've seen it. "This is your punishment," he says, pronouncing each word carefully. "For every minute you refuse to be the Capitol's Mockingjay, a properly believable one, than _this_ is the consequence."

The message delivered, Brock forces my face back toward the one-way mirror. I watch the three Peacekeepers take turns sitting on top of Mayor Undersee, punching his face with glee. Their knuckles red with blood. Undersee's face a slab of unrecognizable meat.

I screw my eyes shut. _They can't make me watch it. I won't let them._ _And they can't hurt me physically, either. The ear thing was only a tease. All of his future attempts will be teases. I don't have to fear anything... _Nothing but my own ears and the sounds they make me hear.

Mayor Undersee is wailing. It reminds me of the way the bats screeched in many ways. So instead of just seeing his bloody face, I recall the image of Seeder's clawed one, my head throbbing. The morphling from District 6 comes to mind, too, but only the high, thin sound of her dying screams ring in my ears. Or is that just Mayor Undersee?

At the sound of a door opening, my eyes fly wide. I watch Head Peacekeeper Brock slip from my room into Mayor Undersee's. _No_. He can't hurt me, but he can hurt Madge's father all he wants. _Why him? Why are they doing this? _I think, throwing myself against the restraints, uselessly. Then I remember his words. The sentence President Snow has passed over me. These are my punishments. To be continued until I can remember how to be a good Mockingjay. His perfect, unflawed Capitol Mockingjay. Except that's impossible. I can't be something I'm not. The whole concept of a Capitol Mockingjay is flawed in of itself. The Mockingjay is mocking the Capitol for the failed experiment they'd sent into the wild to die. The same way Snow sent me into the arena to die. But neither of us did. Both of us made a fool of him and his system. _Neither of us are made nor meant for the Capitol. _

But I know Snow doesn't care about any of that.

The three Peacekeepers that had been ganging up on Mayor Undersee move aside when Brock approaches. Slowly, the Head Peacekeeper hands the knife to one of them, takes off his neat, unblemished uniform jacket to reveal a blood stained shirt beneath. _Johanna's? Darius'? The Avox girl's? Cinna's? _There is no way to know. All I know is that they're pinning Mr. Undersee spread eagle on the floor for the Head Peacekeeper. I close my eyes again, the image of Brock lowering himself to the floor, knife in hand, imprinted like in fire at the forefront of my mind.

The screaming begins. Horrible, chocked cries for help and of agony. Helpless gurgles of a grown man. _What are they doing to him? _My mind is racing, heart flying. I think I'm going to hurl any minute now. Guilt ruptures throughout my whole body when straggled, weird voiced shouts of "_Madge! Madge!"_ and _"Paysilee! Paysilee!" _escapes Mayor Undersee. As if someone is savagely ripping out the wires that connect my mind to my body, I feel the panic rise from my toes to my throat, opening my lips, begging, "Stop!"

"Stop, please! Don't. Let him go," I find myself slurring. The words uselessly shouted at the one-way mirror in front of me. My eyes are open, streaming, and I recoil at the sight of the four men. Mayor Undersee's barely recognizable face a ruin of red ribbons. Head Peacekeeper Brock toying the eye socket with the tip of the knife. A thin, cruel smile on his face. Mr. Undersee's fist beating the ground in his agony.

Turning away and closing my eyes only works for so long. All the screams fall like lava inside my mind, searing and burning, then hardening. Never to be forgotten. Waiting for my vulnerability of sleep to haunt me.

For hours it seems I sit strapped to a table and Mayor Undersee is held underneath Head Peacekeeper Brock. It is longer than I've ever had to endure a Hunger Games death; aside maybe Cato and the mutts. But even then I had Peeta to keep my sanity and fill my worries. All I can seem to think about is that time Mr. Undersee spoke for me to Effie, when I volunteered for Prim. His sad expression that day. Every time Madge handed Gale and I an extra coin or two for the strawberries. If it wasn't for Mayor Undersee's ignorance than we would never have been able to feed our family by poaching. I owe him Prim. I owe him more than to allow this sort of thing to happen. But I'm powerless to stop, let alone hurry, the process.

Eventually I hear someone enter my room again. The screams are weaker, but still there, so I know my punishment isn't over yet. I harden myself. Or attempt to as much as I can. I can just make out the stranger Peacekeeper's expression from behind the plastic plate over his face. He smiles at me.

"Miss Everdeen," he says, very formally. He steps up behind me and without further ado wraps his hands and arms about my face, not only forcing me to watch the scene in front of me, but clamping my tongue painfully into my locked jaw. The sharp, scalding warmth of blood in my mouth, revolting.

I struggle, of course. Even I can sense this is the finale. The last big event. Already I've noticed he's missing an eye. A few new teeth have been extracted. Some weird metal rod with a red hot tip has been used to brand the poor man's face and body. _What more can one man endure?_

"This is your punishment, Miss Everdeen," the Peacekeeper hisses at me, locking his arm around my face tighter. "President Snow's message to you. Every disobedient act leads to the slow death of one of your known companions. You become a pain to him, he may not be able to physically harm you, but you are not the first person Snow has had to take careful steps around, and his pain will become your pain."

His words seem like the ones that could have come straight from President Snow's mouth. Maybe he coached him. All of them. Every time I close my eyes the man jerks my face painfully or slaps me with such a stinging force I open them again. I accept the fact that I'm too weak to break the Peacekeeper's hold on me. And I have to acknowledge the fact that, just like in an arena with twenty-four kids, only one of us between Mayor Undersee and I, is going to make it out of these rooms alive.

Heart pounding, no other choice, I watch Head Peacekeeper Brock back away from the mess that is Madge's father. In the few minutes it takes Brock to find something, they hold the metal rod against the front of Mr. Undersee's neck, listening to the feeble mewls that issue from his lips.

Then Head Peacekeeper Brock steps back toward the man, a new smaller knife in hand.

Close eyes. Must close my eyes, but I can't. The emotions of anticipation and guilt begin to tingle across my skin, starting from my fingers, traveling up my arms, into my chest and replaces any strength I might have been clinging to. Brock reaches him. I want to scream. A warning? A plea? No words will come. No sound. An attempt to focus on the ceiling doesn't work, because I still see them take his head, hold it still in their big hands and Brock as he uses the blade to rip open cheek to cheek, extending the corners of Mayor Undersee's lips. One huge, bloody smile across the man's face for the last few minutes of his life.

I know it's over but my body is still tense with muscles of lead. The Peacekeeper behind me frees my head, but it only falls back against the table with a dull thud. _What have I done? _I think. Heat wells up in the back of my eyes, ridiculously. I don't want to cry, yet the tears burn hot treks down my cheeks.

Head Peacekeeper Brock, blood stained clothes, a spittle of scarlet on his face, approaches me. The other Peacekeepers are cleaning up the mess in the other room, dragging Mayor Undersee by the legs toward another door. I watch the process, because I refuse to look at the Head Peacekeeper while crying.

"I think she gets the message, Dawn," says Brock to the other Peacekeeper. "Escort her back to the cell. She has stories to tell."

_Madge. _A strong tide of bleakness yanks me from my stupor. What am I going to tell her? That I watched her father die? That I listened while they pried the eyes from his head with a knife? Or that I am the reason he was taken, because this was a punishment all for me? To break me. _Has it broken me? Shouldn't I know? Won't I be able to tell?_

I don't struggle with Dawn when he pulls me from the table and wraps his arms around my shoulders. I don't claw at Head Peacekeeper Brock when we pass his smiling self. The most I do is stumble and grasp the wall when we pass through it, back into the terrifyingly white hallway with no doorways.

Just before we reach the end of the hallway that the cell resides, I notice two other people standing, waiting at the doorway. They're doctors, I can tell by their uniforms. One of them is smiling in greeting and the other is just as smooth of face as the prep team. Are people always either morbid in humor or just plainly unfeeling?

"Just one shot," says the smiling man.

I hiss at the needle they sink into the crook of my elbow. "What is it?" I rasp. The doctors are usually always easier to get answers from than Peacekeepers.

"Just some steroids. For the baby."

"What does it do? I don't know what.."

"It's a special formula of which the chemical structure we've altered. It's commonly used here in the Capitol. Many women do not like the hassles of pregnancy and with regular Maternal Riods over about five months the baby will have doubled its miraculous growth inside the womb. Imagine the approximate three hundred and seventy-five percent of growth from first trimester to second intensified! You'll be free of the child long before nine months." Both of them are smiling now, as if they don't know that this baby is the lifeline I use to keep away from Snow's physical torment. In a way the baby is keeping me alive and I am keeping it alive. We need each other. For some reason, for even as the parasite I've come to view it as, the doctors words upset me even more than I'd been upset before.

By the time they dismiss themselves and the wall opens to the cell my whole body is trembling. Not in a bad way, but not a good way, either. In fact, as soon as I step into the bright white room again and I see Madge standing in the center of it, waiting, wringing her hands together, another person sitting on the bench behind her, I burst into tears.

Madge launches herself at me. "It's okay," she says. I can tell she's done this before. She has spent more time in this cell than anyone, watching people come and go, becoming slowly unrecognizable. Her hands force my head to her shoulder, and she strokes my short hair, as if I were the weak girl from town. "It's over," she promises me. "Your back. They won't hurt you here, I'm here. I'll be here. I won't leave. It's over," she says it like she knows all of it is important for me to know.

And her comfort is too much. I push her away quickly. I look at her face. There are pieces of Mayor Undersee in her. The shape her eyes, the lips, the tilt of her chin. The choked noises I make when sobbing start to arise.

"Katniss." Madge tries to help me again, offering words and arms, but I push her away. Out of reach. "What happened?"

"He's dead."

For the space of a few heartbeats there is silence. Madge's face is blank. She doesn't understand. "Peeta?"

_Odds, I hope not. _"No. Your father," I say.

"Oh." I can see how it hits her. A blind blow to the emotions. She's grappling for words to say, when finally, pain gleaming in her eyes, she smiles weakly. "He's happier. Now he can be with my mother again."

Is that true? I wonder, but find I don't care. Instead, my eyes look past her face for a moment, to catch a pair of dark brown, wide-set eyes. Johanna sits hunched on the bench behind Madge, watching our whole exchange. I wipe at the tears on my face, the sobbing thankfully calmed, but still the water persists to fall.

"How..?" I ask, and Madge turns to glimpse Johanna.

"They brought her here as soon as they took my father," says Madge. The girl moves now, somewhat lamely, choosing to sit on the bench that I once thought her father to claim. She lays out, and I turn away from her when I see she's started to cry to herself.

Johanna doesn't object when I come to sit at her side. She looks awful. The stubble of her hair is re-shaved, the cuts showing no one seemed to care whether it was skin or hair they're taking off. Bruises and other scrapes are noticeable all over her body, but what is most striking is the red scar that runs down the side of her cheek, hugging the bottom of her nose, running across her lips and deepening at the chin. A scar from the arena. The knife of Enorbaria's blade flying through the dark comes to memory, head throbbing.

"You've met the real Brock," she croaks finally, her eyes tearing themselves from the wall. They meet mine; crude, hateful, hollow. Her eyes linger on the side of my face. "You've got a cut."

"A scratch," I say, a hand moving to touch it. The small mark he made while threatening to cut off my ear. My eyes drop from the intensity of hers, only to land on the hands she keeps in her lap. One of them wrapped in a tight bandage. "What happened to your hand?"

Johanna looks down, as if surprised to remember she had hands at all. Then, without a word, she begins to unravel the cloth. Slowly I begin to realize it's not the whole hand, but it was only just a finger that had been the focus of the bandage. A missing finger. The pink, puckered end of the knuckle new and raw. "He said that I wouldn't need it," Johanna says, voice hard. "No one would marry me anyhow." That's when I realize it's the left ring finger.

_They same way he said I wouldn't need an ear to be pretty, _I think. And the image of Mayor Undersee's eye hanging limp from the socket flashes into mind. _He just likes taking things from us, all of us. _"I'm sorry," I tell Johanna.

"Should be," she grumbles. Then her eyes fly up to mine, and she maneuvers around until she has a foot up and pressing into my side, shoving me hard off the bench until I stand. "This is my bench," says Johanna. I nod, but she merely turns her back to me, rolls over and sleeps. Or at least, feigns it.

I want to sleep, too. But I can't. Not with recent things in mind. _The punishment, _I remind myself. A punishment that can repeat itself if I don't begin acting the way a Capitol Mockingjay does. The thing all of them expect me to be. Even the rebels.

I start the night off by laying on the third bench, praying for a dreamless sleep. Except every time I close my eyes I hear the screaming, the way his fist splashed in the pool of blood underneath him. _Don't break, _I remind myself. _This can't break me. _I've seen too many people die for this to get to me. And the fact that he died at my expense isn't a new feeling. Seeder died for me. Chaff did. Mags gave me life two times over with the glasses and taking that spear. I've seen Rue die, and even that pain seems dull compared to Mayor Undersee. The difference of him is that he died for me unwillingly.

I try to think of it the way Madge has. That he is better off this way. He is happier with his wife, or where ever death takes you. Hopefully somewhere painless. And somehow I'm suddenly thinking of my father. Where did he go? Was he happy that he left? Did he lay underneath a thousand pound boulder for hours, blood filling his lungs, until finally he was given the mercy of death?

I'm crying when I fall asleep. Harsh yellow lights ring the perimeter of the room. I sit at the base of the wall, underneath a window, hugging my knees in my arms, and making myself as small as possible. The wait is painstaking. The time that passes is another moment that we don't know.

Mother is pacing the room. Seven year old Prim is tugging at her pants, begging to be picked up, not understanding why the house is so gloomy. Why outside in the Seam we can hear the wailing of newly widowed women and the angry voices of their sons shouting at the odds.

"He'll come home," I hear my mother say. "Some made it out. They were near the entrance. He said he'd be home early today." Like all her words would make those things true. She picks up Prim, finally, my littler sister's legs straddling my mother's side as her arms wrap around mother's neck. Together, they pace.

I watch them over my kneecaps, desperately holding in the tears. Trying to forget what the Peacekeepers said. _There was a collapse. Scores of teams dead. Bodies already found. We are still clearing away the rubble. We will send a man to you if we find Mr. Everdeen. Dead or alive. _But everyone knows alive means _not alive for long_. If the cave in doesn't crush them, the coal dust will give them black lung, suffocating them easily.

Yet, we wait for the knock on the door. A Peacekeeper with his regretful face, formal tone standing beyond our house. I watch from my place underneath the window as my mother slowly lowers Prim to the floor, despite my little sister's cries of protest and for comfort. I sit and watch as my mother's face crumbles. As she walks from the house with the Peacekeeper, not bothering to glance back at either of us.

Prim stands at the doorway for a long time. She doesn't understand. "Where's dad?" she asks, maybe five times before I found my voice. "Where did he go? Is mom going to get him?"

"Yes," I answer. I open my arms out to her. Unlocked my stance for her. To let her inside. She runs to me, clinging to me as I folded her safely into a ball just like before. Holding us together. Stroking her hair as I explained to her that there had been an accident. That he wasn't coming back. _Ever._

But the memory and dream wavers after that. I'm suddenly not there with Prim and I am alone, in the caves of the arena, watching a jabberjay dance above my head. Emitting the screams of Mayor Undersee, but that sounded so painfully familiar they could have been any man's. My father's.

I wake with a jolt when the cave floor underneath me falls open.

A painful sound escapes me when I hit the floor, having rolled off the bench in sleep. The fall had woken me and the blow makes my shoulder sear in protest. Cold sweat has curled the short strands of hair against the back of my neck and my forehead. I want to get up, I should, but I find myself exhausted.

Too tired to keep my eyelids open. At the edges of sleep, I see him. Screaming. Thrashing. Metal glinting blade pressing into the side of his lips, looping upward to his ears. I dig my fingernails into my palm to stay awake, away from the nightmares. It doesn't help. The nightmare is in dream and in wakefulness.

I try to recall Prim. She could bring me back to earth if nothing else could, but it doesn't help. The image of her grieving our father is too impotent. Making me ache for my father, too, at this ridiculous moment. Someone who could take care of me. A person I can trust to take care of me. But there isn't anyone like that, not since my father left me. Not since the very moment he left and I had been forced to become the protector, not the one being protected.

It is quiet in the cell. So quiet that I roll over just to see that both benches are empty. Madge and Johanna no where in the room. I'm all alone. At the realization I sit up. How could I have not woken when the Peacekeepers came to take them from me? Why were they taken? Because they'd comfort me?

_Pale face, glistening pink ribbons of flesh on his cheeks._ Awake. Stay awake. Focus.

My eyelids flutter, trying to close, giving into the bliss of sleep. I have to force them open. Too many nightmares await me. So many faces of my loved ones eagerly expecting my vulnerable state. Readying to haunt me.

I move to the bench in the middle; Johanna's. I sit, hand tracing the white surface of the seat, feeling only cold. If it were warm I would be convinced that they left minutes ago, but no. It's as cold as the air around me. They left hours ago.

The cold only serves to remind me I'm underground. Just like the arena. Exactly like the coal mines. I lay on my side, curled as much as the baby allows, trying not to be scared. I have to tell myself the silence is a comfort, not a curse. That in this darkness I become invisible, not vulnerable.

_Bruises as purple as black. Screams drowned by blood. _My eyes are as heavy as lead.

What are they trying to do to me? Break me? For a minute I'm about to say I already am broken. There's no point in trying anymore, but I realize that I'm not. Not yet.

But there is no hope. Not here. Not in this suffocating place.

There is though. Underneath my shirt, there is someone who promises life among pain. I'm going through this because of this life. To save one life, while enduring hell. I can do that. I've never been afraid to sacrifice things for the people I love. Multiple times people have asked–or needed to ask–for my life. Prim at the reaping, Peeta in both Hunger Games, Gale at his whipping. To all of them I extended a hand and snapping words. To give a life for someone is simpler than your sanity though. And I can't help the surge of regret in my blood.

I don't know what I should regret; the Quarter Quell, the lies Haymitch told, President Snow, the berries, being captured by the Capitol, letting Mayor Undersee die for my punishment. Any of them are in the run for winner. The only one that doesn't stand at the edge of a completely hateful remembrance is the night in the Training Center, with Peeta's hot breath against my cheek, his hands eliciting more pleasure in me than I'd felt before. _That, I won't let President Snow ruin. He won't take away that good moment between us. I won't let him. _I don't regret the sex. I regret the result.

With that in mind, I finally give into my exhaustion and I dream of laying in bed, a infant scrawling in the distance. Me, with no will or strength to get up and help it.


	6. Chapter Six

_**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

_A/N: Sorry this is kind of short. But it is also extremely important. Tell me what you think in a review! Thanks for reading, sorry for typos. -Taryn(:_

* * *

Chapter Six

Someone is touching my shoulder. I wake immediately at the feel, but instead of cluing them in on the fact that I've woken to their presence, I hold my steady breathing and keep my eyelids firmly shut. Whoever it is touches my hair next. Rubs the fine strands between their fingers. Makes a small noise of ponderment and sadness.

I can't seem to come up with anyone who would toy with my hair other than Peeta. But the hope that it's Peeta comes to only make me ache physically, remembering how far he is from here. Maybe I am dreaming. No Peacekeeper, not even President Snow would sit at my sleeping side just to run their fingers through my hair.. no Capitolite.. except..

When I open my eyes the person touching me starts. He rips his hand away, as if my movement was enough to startle him as drawing a gun might have. Though it is cold here, I feel damp from the nightmares and our hot breaths are the only sound, or source of heat for miles. We stare at each other in the bright white room whose lights are just dim enough to highlight the top of his nose, and the circle of his eyes, for the first time ever without golden eyeliner. Like I thought, it's Cinna, but it's not the usual finesse, enthusiast I'd always known.

But upon recovering from the moments fright, his bloodied lips break into a warm smile.

"Katniss," he breathes and I sit up, slip onto my knees to mirror him, and throw my arms around his shoulders. I thought him dead for so long. Ever since I was put into the arena. I saw him beaten, unconscious and dragged from my sight, and now he's here. In my arms, holding me tightly in return.

When we both pry apart, he pulls us back up onto the bench to sit. Yet he can't seem to stop touching me, and he takes both of my hands into his. His eyes trace the edge of my face tenderly, until they fall to my hair. One of his hands lifts to run through the limp, ugly strands and his lips turn down only for a moment, because seconds later he is forcing another smile. "I would say welcome," he says. "But this is hardly a place you'll rejoice in being."

"I'm sorry you're here," I say. I think of all that's happened. Mayor Undersee. Madge. Johanna. All the time he's spent in here, why doesn't he hate me? _And he could be next. _The next person they use to punish me with. Tears begin to well at the corners of my eyes and I turn my face away, embarrassed about being emotional.

"I heard about the news," says Cinna, encouraging. "A little Mellark, is it?"

Head still turned, my eyes fall to the evidence underneath my shirt. One of my hands moves to shift across the bump, teeth biting into my cheek. "It wasn't planned."

"The way Peeta put it in his interview made me think so."

"No," I say, eyes casting to the side. "That was before... we didn't know. I never knew.. not until it was too late. And I was here."

There is silence. Cinna's hands in mine remove themselves, one of them grasping me gently under the chin and turning my face back up toward his. For a minute I'm not here, I'm back in the room. Head Peacekeeper Brock has my face in his hands, snarling in my face. Mayor Undersee if screaming like a wild animal in the next room. The sharp, inhale of breath makes it feel like a tight pain in my chest. Triggered by this one, simple movement.

"Chin up," says Cinna, tapping it. "Even in chains you can be confident."

He is oblivious to the memory that strikes me like a brick wall. The experience that will never flit from thought so soon. And yet, I hear is words as if a different, more levelheaded side of me never truly slipped away.

_Not if I want to keep you and Madge and Johanna alive, _it thinks. _Confidence is only lip. And I get hit when I speak out._"It's been so horrible, Cinna," I breathe.

"I know," he says. _What memories grip him like ice? _I wonder.

"How long have you been here? I mean, you could have woken me."

"I wouldn't dream of it. You need your rest, I can see it underneath your eyes."

I eye his face at that. The cuts, bruises, slash mark running down the back of his shaved head. I touch the branded mark on his neck; right where they had placed the red-hot metal rod on Mr. Undersee, too. For a minute I imagine a shape in it.. three lines? No, a checker? I can't differentiate it in this light. "I'm so sorry," I tell him.

"Don't be," says Cinna. He opens his arms to me and pulls me in, stroking my hair. I want to ask him to stop. Just like Madge I don't want to be comforted, or coddled, but I realize that maybe this is Cinna's way of comforting himself. He is a stylist after all, and maybe, I can lessen his pain in this miniscule way, just by letting him do something that is so familiar. "You have hours before they come back for you," says Cinna. "I overheard them talking as they led me back."

I give a small shrug, as if I couldn't care any less.

"Johanna has told me a little about what happened since the Games started," he continues to say. As he speaks he continues combing my hair with long, slow strokes. More caress than an act of grooming. "Of how Peeta fell down that first day and it had been up to you to save him. The rescue plan and the struggle it was to escape the underground arena. That your home was destroyed, possibly your family with it."

I can't deny any of it. Nor can I merely agree to it. There's nothing I can say and the silence that follows his words drags on... and on. "I can't tell you how sorry I am for all of this," says Cinna, true sorrow in his voice. "I remember the first time I met you and I'd wondered aloud of how monstrous we must have seemed, and now I can not even dream of how much you hate. I have no idea what future awaits you, Katniss, but I do hope that someday, possibly, joy and love will be a part of it."

Another long pause, then finally, I get out a whisper, "I do not deserve that, Cinna."

"Deserve what, child?"

"Love and joy."

"And how is it that you don't deserve such love and joy?"

"Because if my home lays in ruins, and my family under it, then that is nothing but my fault." _No, _I can hear the sane part of me arguing. Except I can hardly hear it, so far down in my pit. I know it's not my fault, I know I shouldn't. This isn't strong. I should be strong. _Mayor Undersee wasn't very strong, look at him. _Because of me...

"How so?" asks Cinna. The stylist draws back so we can look each other in the eyes; his are soft, mine sliding off to the side. "What makes you say that?"

Hesitatingly, I tell Cinna of everything that has ensued in the past four months. The surprise pregnancy. Three months spent unconscious. Peeta and Finnick and Beetee in District 13. Everything Snow has done and said. Head Peacekeeper Leon, his son, his mysterious wife. Hateful, awful Brock. My punishment with Mayor Undersee. The real reason he and Madge and Johanna and Darius are locked up here. _Everything._ Even my nightmares of Prim and my father and me laying in bed, not responding to my baby, calling for me. Just like my mother would do.

"I'm sorry," I rush out along with all the rest of my confession. This is more than I'd ever put upon Madge's poor shoulders. More than I've ever even done to Peeta. I don't like unloading my burdens on others, ever, but Cinna just keeps petting my hair, nodding when I need it, frowning at the right parts. "I don't mean to just start throwing all these things at you... you haven't been here ten minutes." I take a few deep breaths, waiting for the tears, the gripping emotions, only it doesn't come. I feel oddly numb and broken and full of horrid memories.

Cinna's hand in my hair stills, finally, when I pause for breath.

"Wait, Katniss," Cinna says. Like before, gentle fingers lift my chin up so that our eyes meet and his are so serious, there's no way I could turn away. No way I can picture Brock in his place. "Listen to me. Those are strong words you use and hardly true. Me? This was my doing, Katniss, I knew what I was getting into and I would never hold you accountable. And for your family? Those others among the districts? Your fault? No. They were victims not of any single ill will, but of circumstance. Our country falling apart is not a burden for you to hold. It is being destroyed by the miasma of hate, Katniss, not by any single person or action. Everyone hated; you, Snow, the Capitol, the Hunger Games, the Districts, the victors. A small boy walking down the streets of one of the completely fed up districts in Panem could have sparked the disaster that ate it as much as anything you did, or anything you said. It was only a matter of time, you just acted at that time. Forgive yourself, Katniss," Cinna whispers. "If you hate, don't hate yourself. Hate what matters."

I tighten my grip on his hand, wanting so badly to believe his words. I lift my eyes from his form and the floor for once, realizing with a start that we are in fact, not alone. In the corner of the darkest part of this white room sits Johanna. She is huddled in there, wedged to fit as if she thinks the converge of the wall might hide her from sight. I can see she is in immense physical pain. There is new blood on her, new torment; she is freshly arrived with Cinna, no doubt.

And when she sees me looking, those usually flat and resentful eyes gleam at me from the corner sympathetic. Dazed as if she's not in her right mind. Drugged, possibly. I open my mouth, not knowing what I might say, when she says, "Stop being an idiot. You know it wasn't your fault, now suck it up." Her voice is slightly off, like there is a wad of cotton in her cheeks, but still, her words are the nicest they've been since we've met here in the Capitol.

I laugh. It hurts too much though, and I stop almost immediately but I'm rewarded with Cinna's grin of relief. Johanna doesn't smile, yet looks satisfied enough, curling herself to the left, cheek hugging the cold white wall. Her eyes are closed soon, her labored breathing breaking off in odd places. I want to help her pain, know I can't and turn back to Cinna. I overlook over his face, imploring, the smile still remaining in the area around his eyes. "Have you seen Madge?"

He shakes his head. "There is no way for us to know when she'll be back."

With that we fall into silence. The impending silence only a cell can give when you know you are waiting to either be taken to torture or expecting a friend to return, who will be in need of vast comfort. The thought of Madge in that room.. is unimaginable. I can see the things that happened to Mayor Undersee done unto her and I feel my stomach begin to quiver.

Again I try to withdraw when Cinna pulls me near, fingers in my hair, because I just don't like the way it makes me feel. All at his expense. But I let him because I know it makes him feel better and that is only half of what I owe him. I hate owing people. Especially when I know I can not pay them back. For all the sacrifice he's done for me.. the Mockingjay dress, these past months, being here for me now. Yes. I can give him this.

Though there is no way to tell what time it is, I can still feel exhaustion tugging at my mind. Johanna is snoring softly in the corner, while Cinna and I have flickering eyelids, leaning heavily into each other to stay sitting. The feel of his hands in my hair makes me think of Peeta. That boy has always loved my hair; touching it since the first arena, when it would fall on my forehead. It makes him seem... so boyish, for finding such trivial pleasure in such a non-existential object. Sure, I like his hair, but not nearly enough to adore it. In fact, now that I think about it... what is it that I like most about Peeta? Nothing physical, though I do admire those dramatic blue eyes.. it's his purity, his goodness.. the...

"Miss Everdeen?"

I start at the sound of my name. Cinna, too. My eyes fly open to the sight of Head Peacekeeper Leon standing alone in the open doorway of our cell. Cinna urges me to my feet when we both realize I'm being summoned.

"Yes?" I say.

"You must come with me," says Leon, formally, professionally. It feels like forever since I last saw him walking away from me, ordered to President Snow's office. The edges of his face seem slimmer, his body skinner, too. Maybe it is the lighting.

"Where?" I ask, stepping toward him.

"I am not at privilege to tell you, Miss Everdeen," says Leon.

He moves aside when I move out the threshold of the cell. I'm hesitant, though. I turn to watch the wall close behind me. Cinna and Johanna seeing me go. "Please, this way, Miss Everdeen," Leon urges me when I don't move for several moments.

I follow Leon unresisting. Something about his behavior makes me feel off, though. As if the few days I've spent in this setting of the mansion undergrounds has erased the last month and a half we'd spent together. Though it was not pleasant time, it's still time. It's not as if we are strangers like the rest of the Peacekeepers. So why is he acting like it?

I'm trying to think of something to say, that would make sense, but nothing comes to mind. My thoughts only get tangled and messy. I decide that if he's acting indifferent, I'll do the same. We walk down the door-less hallway in silence. That is until we approach the elevator and I rebuke, far too easily forgetting my earlier resolve. "Where are we going?" I demand again.

"To see President Snow. He wants to talk to you about getting back to your duties as the Mockingjay."

"I don't want to be the Mockingjay," I tell Leon as a reflex. He knows this already, it's safe to tell him.

Except his lips seem to tighten and his professional expression wavers. "I'm sorry, Miss Everdeen, but you must know that I am a citizen loyal to my home and what you say to my ears must be repeated by me to my upper authorities. That is my job as a Peacekeeper; to keep the peace. I warn you only _once_. Speak treason to me again, and I'll have no choice but to report you."

"What?" I ask, lost. "You are the upper authority."

"Was," says Leon. He gestures to the open elevator. "Please, this way, Miss Everdeen."

"Was?" I echo. What does he mean? I stand my ground until Leon sighs and rubs at the five o'clock shadow on his jaw. "What do you mean 'was'?"

"It is not appropriate to speak with prisoners of personal matters such as demotions. _To spare both us pain, _please, get in the elevator, Miss Everdeen."

Confused but all for the sparing of pain, I step inside. I am still stubborn though, and maybe my thoughts aren't going in a straight line and I have remind myself... _My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am seventeen years old. My home is gone. The Capitol needs me as their Mockingjay. Peeta's fighting. I'm five months pregnant. I've been punished.. _I get out, "Was it because of what you told me?"

"I don't know what you're referring to, Miss Everdeen."

I stare at him and Leon stares right back. Piercing green eyes seeing straight through mine. _Both of us have changed, _I suddenly realize. It's only been a few days, with me enduring the unimaginable and Leon.. what has he been doing? I want to ask, except the words he said before about sparing each other pain rings clearly in the forefront of my mind, reminding me to obey. _I have Cinna and Madge and Johanna to protect. _Not just the child anymore. There are people depending on me.

"Point the way," I tell Leon when the elevator doors open again. The subject dropped.. for now.

I think I see the hint of a smile, but I'm not sure. Leon steps out of the elevator and directs me down a familiar hall with cheap molding carpet. The smell of mildew increases. Seems to swell inside my nose. I wonder how Leon isn't gagging because of it.

At the end of the hall is the same room as before, with its scarred metal table, rusty drain in the middle of the concrete floor, telephone and television. Even President Snow is sitting in the same chair he had been in before. From his place he indicates for me to sit across him, nodding a dismissal to Peacekeeper Leon at the door.

"Good morning, Miss Everdeen," Snow says. "It's a nice autumn day, today."

I sit in the chair, hands rubbing at a stain of blood on my shirt. Was it Cinna's? Maybe it rubbed off on me. Then I realize my thoughts are wondering terribly and I have to force myself to gather my head. I suppose I've developed some sort of attention problem. "It's morning?" I ask. "In autumn?"

"The summer is just ending, so I suppose the usual cold down here would deceive you. But yes, it's about ten o'clock now. I do have a meeting at eleven, so I would hope to hurry this along. Don't you agree?"

"Yes," I say. _It's fall? _It seemed like just yesterday I was in District 12, the sun's heat beating on my shoulders. I suppose it's been four months since the Quarter Quell. A few days over five, actually. This war seems to be lasting forever.

"You are probably wondering why I have called you here," Snow continues. "To help you understand somethings, I must confess to you that I am.. slightly regretful of what has happened recently."

"Regretful?" I burst. Images of Mayor Undersee hit me; screaming, withering, huge bloody smile. The pain in my head throbs. I'm so startled by this claim all I can do is stare at him. "About what?"

"About how indirect my messages have been."

"No, I got your message," I say. "Loud and clear."

"Oh, but I don't think you did." Snow sits up a little straighter, sharing a patent smile. I wonder when he will stop pretending. When it'll only be cold and hard and truthful between us, and the smiles or his polite words will be forgotten. _I look forward to those days. _"You see, Mayor Undersee was the warning. Not a punishment. You will know when a true punishment comes.. it'll feel more similar to what happened to District Twelve, than it does for the loss of one old, useless man."

_He's promising me worse. Wants me to know that he still has tricks up his sleeves. _The smell of blood coming off of this man makes me think of the time I spent strapped to that table. Head Peacekeeper Brock had smelled just as potent of the fluid.. but less like festering. I sum up this source of putrid as just a result of how awful President Snow is. _An old, useless man? _I think. _A man braver than you, Snow._

Part of me wants to taunt him about the things he doesn't hold over my head. Like Peeta or Prim or Gale. But he still has the baby and.. though less close to heart, Johanna and Madge and Cinna linger in his palms. All these pieces to use against me. It makes me think it would just be easier not to care for any person at all. If I just didn't _care_, this would all be so simple.

I look at Snow and wonder where his weak points are. If he has people that make him _care_, too. Or is that his secret? Not caring, ever. If he does have a wife or children or people he cares about, I would personally find a way to inflict on him what he's done unto me. One day, if I get out of here, I will find these weak points and I will make sure he feels the pain straight through that unfeeling layer of politeness. Until he is begging for the arrow I'll sink into his eye.

Building this hate up inside me as he sat there staring at me, I feel my lips begin to sneer. I want to shout these threats at him. Promise him retribution right back at his intimidation's... but I hold my tongue. _Because of the others. _"I'll be your Mockingjay," I tell him. Snow opens his mouth to reply, but I continue to say, "... on a few conditions."

President Snow almost scowls. "You already have given me conditions, Miss Everdeen. That I do not harm the child. That you get to visit District Twelve. What more do you want? I am only so generous."

"You will spare the life of not only the baby, but its father, too. All the victors.. Cinna. Even Effie, if she's still alive." I know when I must take advantage of things, and this is one of those moments. If I'm going to do this.. become this thing, then I will reap every good thing I can from it. To strengthen the whole point of doing this, since I do it to protect my friends and loved ones, then I must make him promise me them afterward, too.

"They are war criminals," says Snow. "I can promise life, but not their tongues."

"They'll be granted immunity!" I feel myself rising from my chair, my voice full and resonant. For sure for once in these last few months. "You will personally pledge this in front of the entire population of the Capitol. Soon. Today. It will be recorded for future generations. You will hold yourself and your government responsible for their safety, and if any of them become an Avox then I will personally sink the bullet into my brain, I swear it."

Snow considers my snarled threat, before saying, "Fine. The victors, all of them spared. Even your stylist. Now, you said the father. Is this the cousin?"

Surprised by his sudden relent, I'm only twice as stunted by his question. Slowly, processing his words, I sit in the chair again. "What?"

"You said the father of the child is among the conditions. I am wondering, is this Gale Hawthorne or Peeta? Only for professional terms, of course. I would hate to assume one or the other and ruin our deal for ignorance." Now it is President Snow who leans forward on the table and meets my gaze steadily. "Is it Gale or Peeta?"

I'm a little winded by the suggestion. I had thought he knew, all this time. Ever since the arena. The implications that I could so readily dispose of Peeta, that I'm in love with Gale, that the whole thing has been an act makes my cheeks begin to burn. "Peeta..." I find myself saying, "always him."

"Interesting," says Snow, sitting back in his chair. He observes my face closely, then smiles. "Are these all your terms?"

"My family and the remaining citizens of District Twelve," I say, a bit feebly, knowing that this is my biggest request. The other conditions are small compared to this one. At least the victors have uses to him. The starving population of 12, though, is nothing to him but a burden of homeless citizens. "This includes Madge and the Hawthornes," I remind him.

I'm waiting for the argument, the all out no. Snow's face seems to be lost in deep pondering, before he reaches for the phone on the table to our left. He takes his time dialing some numbers, then holds the device to his ear. "Yes," he says immediately . "Bring him in."

We wait several tense minutes in silence after he hangs up, until finally, I ask, "Who?"

"The man who is going to help us pull this off, of course. You don't think this will be a simple thing, do you? To make people believe you are with us? No. This will be grueling work for both of us. That is why I will promise you the lives of citizens of District Twelve.. _after_ the war. I can not ensure anyone's safety, not even yours, until the rebellion is put to rest. Afterward, certainly. For now, we have many days of coaching and filming ahead of us."

"Just like that?" It seems so simply stated. Too easy.

"We can only wait and see, Miss Everdeen."


	7. Chapter Seven

_**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

_A/N: Blurgh. -Taryn_

* * *

Chapter Seven

I take a deep breath, walk slowly to the edge of the staircase, and, by the time the crowd begins to shout, I hope that the smile on my face is steady. _Unbreakable. _I am a brick wall, the Capitol citizen's screams running over me, unheard. The flowers they throw falling about thirty steps too short. A laugh I force to break from my throat, genuine.

_What a fool I must look. _Truthfully, the scene President Snow has managed to paint is glorious. The City Center has never been so crowded, except for like it used to get during a chariot ceremony of a new year's supply of tributes. In this crowd you can see among them stands the richest, the most lavished. Those who have yet to suffer very much. Round faces and ridiculous brightly colored clothes. They are waves of vivid illumination, swaying to the sound of the Capitol anthem, cranked out of the speakers on the front of the President's mansion, above the head's of us who stand at the top of the mansion's elaborate, white marble staircase.

Trained, probed, forced, into knowing everything I must do, I turn away from the crowd just as the anthem ends. _Just as Plutarch planned, this is going off well. _Throughout the past three weeks I've been working nonstop with Plutarch, a man originally rebel, for Heavensbee and for the rescue plan, and one of the only traitors of the Capitol not executed on the day now called, _Retribution. _His tongue, unfortunately, was not spared. That made communication with my new instructor in the arts of lies and falseness quite difficult, but Snow found a solution; paper and pen. _Grueling_, is not a hard enough word I would use to describe the last three weeks of my life.

The first week I spent it with Plutarch and Cinna. Between the two of them, and the now strict and ominous Peacekeeper Leon, they hammered out an acceptable line of clothing for the Capitol Mockingjay. It broke a little of my resolve on the _no Mockingjay _vow when I saw the sketch book Cinna had prepared. His signature at the end of it; _I'm still betting on you. _Those days I spent with him outside the cell, taking measurements on my newly deformed body, finding the best way to make up for my loss of hair, and coming up with a new body suit, were the best since my arrival here.

The second week was not so kind to me. With Cinna gone away again, it was just Plutarch, his new camera crew, and I. Oh, and Peacekeeper Leon, who, though demoted, has been ordered to be my Avox of some sort. What ever I want, water, food, a hot towel, he's suppose to retrieve it for me. By the scowl on his face I can tell this is not pleasant for him. That he didn't ask for this. It's the job of an Avox. He's been branded a traitor of some sort, and I can't help but think it has something to do with the mysterious wife of his.

We made many practice propos, most of which were dreadful on my behave. I couldn't lie right. I stuttered. My voice caught. Hands would twist and tug and fidget. After Plutarch's wild body gestures at me to cease those things didn't work, and Peacekeeper Leon told President Snow about the problems of fibbing I've been having, they've resorted to a less pleasant means of getting me to practice lying. It's this funny little contraption. Leon told me it used to be an innocent child's toy before the government developed it a bit more, finding it useful. There's a chip and a remote. Nothing surgical, and even Plutarch admitted as a boy he'd played with such toys often. You see, one only needs to drop the chip into someone's pocket of in the hood of their jacket, and even from miles away, one click of the remote and the person planted with said chip receives a slight shock.

The newly developed one is not quite so slight, and not nearly such a funny prank. I speak as a first hand victim when I claim that the shock hurts. One mistake in my interviews or practice speeches and the cameraman–since neither Leon nor Plutarch were trusted with the job–would send my nerves withering, from fingertips to hairline to pinky toes. I'd cry out for the most part, when they first started doing it, but after awhile I'd only clamp my teeth momentarily, cease my mistakes and lie as smoothly as Peeta could.

By week three I knew I was changing. I was getting better. Stronger. Every night when I would be escorted from practice to the showers, I'd take a moment to stare at my reflection. To note the unnoticeable pieces of me. Making inventory, so one day, I'll know what's all gone to black and what's still good, quality Katniss Everdeen. _The real Katniss Everdeen can't lie, _I'd think, but even when I stand in front of the mirror, stark naked, a hand resting on the six month pregnant belly protruding from my torso, and I tell myself that I'm a girl raised in District 6, with an accent, my eyes are green and my hair is blonde and my name is Heidi, I can make myself believe it. I can say it so smoothly, eye flat and honest, hands heavy at my side, it's like I'm not a person at all. I'm someone who can change at the next heartbeat. A wavering, shimmering facet of water, ready to change my shape at the snap of Snow's fingers.

And now here I stand. Face smiling, grey eyes ringed in makeup, the body armor of the Capitol's Mockingjay hedging the lines of my pregnant body as I walk from point A to point B, waving at the crowd. I could be anyone right now. A brick wall. Plutarch told me it'll get easy if I just act like a brick wall. I see nothing. I hear nothing.

"Welcome," I hear President Snow's voice say, booming from the speakers in replacement of the anthem. I stand some ten feet away from him at his usual podium, only instead of like in the Hunger Games when he speaks from the balcony of his mansion, the microphone and everything has been dropped down a level and on the wrong side. The way his mansion is built is so the left side of the magnificent building is facing the loop of the City Center, where as so the citizens don't have to go trumpeting about his front lawn every time he tries to address his people. This time, though, he wants it more personal, closer to the people, welcoming them beyond the gate of his yard and toward his home.

On instinct my eyes see the Peacekeepers among the colorful crowd. Prowling the corners like white cats, eyes shifting one way and the other. At the sight of Leon, standing stiff, face covered in a plastic plate that slightly deforms the features of his face, makes me feel slightly safer here, out in the open.

The sun is bright this day. A cool, crisp autumn air biting the tips of my fingers, reminding me of the caves. _I am a brick wall, I don't feel cold. _The smile on my face widens when President Snow turns to me, eyes meeting mine, a hand gesturing to me in friendly allure. The other officials that stand around me in the line–a series of Head Peacekeepers that are well known, Plutarch, two or three men I don't know, and one woman dressed in a way that reminds me of Effie–all step aside as I make my way toward the summon.

_Remember your lines. _"It's so great to see the Capitol in all of its glory," I say, admiring. Eyes cast to the crowd of citizens, as if to me they represent the beauty of this city. _Your job is to win their hearts, _I hear Snow's voice hammered into my head. _You flatter them, you make them love you just like before. Give them hope. _Because he can't, I know. The reason is that because all the districts are at war with each other, the Capitol is losing luxury fast. They're scared. Worried the rebels have the upper hand.. _me. _But I'm suppose to tell them I'm on their side.

"I just want to thank you all for keeping me here," I find the lines falling from my lips. My hands are gripping the podium, when Snow steps aside to allow me to address the country. I stare at the faces beaming up at me, the glare of the late evening sun glinting in my face. There's a camera on the far left end of the staircase. I try not to stare at it much; or else I might think about the people in District 13 watching me do this.

_But I have to. _I can feel the chip tucked against my neck at the collar of this ridiculous suit. Underneath my feet somewhere Johanna and Madge and Cinna are laying about a cell. _Depending on me. _I am someone who takes care of my own. Just like how I couldn't leave Peeta behind in the first arena, putting me in this mess, I won't leave my fellow prison mates in woe while I thrive.

"It's been such an opportunity to see all this city has to offer–what this _government_ has to offer! You can not understand the pain I've felt these past few months. War, for _six months_. Excruciating months," the speech rolls in my head. Perfected. Memorized. The lies fall easy from my tongue, slowly making me loathe this new ability more and more. _I am doing this Prim. For Peeta and Gale. District 12. The rebels can't promise me their safety, Snow can. I can't make the rebels happy and watch my loved ones suffer. Even when Snow is the one offering me an out, I know working against the rebels is the only way I can protect them now. _"If it weren't for your generosity... your forgiveness, I don't know what I would do. You have let me redeem myself, helped me see just how blind we of the districts have been to your world. How the Hunger Games are the thing that knits you together as a people. How those Games are a salvation we should look up to. Those rebels they are still so blind" –_for Prim, for Peeta, for the baby– _"and I hope, now that I've agreed to be your Mockingjay, your voice, a helping hand to the Capitol, that I can somehow show them the light."

Big applause. Various chants for my name and, "_Mockingjay! Mockingjay!" _have begun. I smile my way through it, try not to flinch when Snow steps up to the podium beside me and places a hand on my shoulder. There is a grin on his face; he's satisfied. I've done good. I deserve a treat.

"Thank you, Miss Everdeen, that was beautiful," says Snow. He turns from me to the crowd again, hand still heavy on my shoulder. "My people," he says, and if he can deceive me at the sound of some affection in his professional, serious voice, then he no doubt fooled those citizens, "you'll be glad to know that I've accepted and both instigated this offer!" There is laughter; _how could he refuse me? _"Know that like Retribution day when we let go of those traitors among our midst, today we gain an ally! We gain from our loss. And just like the Dark Days before this rebellion, we will rise from the darkness stronger and better for it!"

It is a joyous day in the Capitol. The Hunger Games come again. Katniss Everdeen, their new Mockingjay. The significance of that title may be lost to most of them, but I can see in some faces the realization. They know I've turned my back. Can tell how this might change things. First, I'm going to be their hope signal, flaunting myself around the Capitol, the very picture of hope itself; as I am both young, strong and pregnant, promising both future and life. And in a society so obsessed with perfection and sex and wealth, they can take in every piece of me with a sense of familiarity.

Then, I will go to war, unpregnant. Ready to tear the rebels down for real.

As I'm relieved from Snow's side, sent back to my place in line between Head Peacekeeper Brock and Head Peacekeeper Helen, of District 4, I find myself praying the future never comes.

The ceremony continues for another twenty minutes or so. Maybe half an hour. The whole time I am standing, stiff, at attention; believable. Every move a lie. Truthfully, my ankles are swollen and aching, and I have to pee after the first ten minutes. I feel uncomfortable as a whole, not just with the situation or standing between a stranger and an awful man, but _uncomfortable_ because while I stand here painted up, short hair twisted into a pretty, shining updo I think of what the rebels will say.

Eventually the ceremony ends, Snow dismissing us, introducing us like he had when we first stepped up, this time to dismiss us. Down the line he goes. This person and that, until he reaches me and smiles. _Mockingjay. _Then, _Brock. _And so on until, finally, we are all hauling ourselves back toward the mansion's front doors. The cameras are being shut off. Citizens being herded away by the Peacekeepers, about ten times happier than they had been before showing up today.

Around me the officials linger in the fancy, huge front room of Snow's mansion. They're all mingling with each other, gathering in their respective circles. I am lost among them, turning around, hoping to spot Snow, for my next orders. Leon is at the front door, holding it open for people to come through still. Plutarch is mouthing words to the Effie styled woman I'd seen. Then, out the corner of my eyes, as I'm turning on my toes, I see a familiar face.

He's just barely slipping through a side door that I know to be Avox door. I'm not even entirely sure what I saw was real. I know I caught a glimpse of a handsome face, though. A peculiarly familiar handsome face, but as I stand on my toes, trying to see what this Avox is doing.. I find I'm staring at the back of a head with crimson red hair, as the young man stoops to clean up a dropped wine glass.

_I must have imagined it, _I think, sighing. I miss familiar people so much I'm starting to find them everywhere. Like how I saw Prim in the faces of Caesar and Leon. _I can't let that get to me.._

"Katniss," I hear behind me. Startled, I spin on the balls of my feet, forcing a smile. It's Head Peacekeeper Brock. "That was a very nice speech out there."

"I told you a script would help," I find myself saying. _Unable to let go. _When I look at Brock I see Mayor Undersee, screaming, in pain.. dying. The way Madge sobbed on the bench afterward. "But thanks, anyway."

It is the wrong answer. _Madge says she always has the wrong one, too, _I think, wondering who had the right ones. Not Johanna. Nor Cinna. Especially not Mr. Undersee. It seems no one does. "I see they haven't been able to tame your manners much," says Brock. I can see in the gleam of his eyes that he's angry. At least, they always look that way; narrow, dark, cut in a cruel, sharp fashion into his hard face. "Would you like to hear how some of your friends are fairing? It's the least I can do, since you're now my Mockingjay."

_He's from the Capitol? _I don't know why this surprises me. Leon was raised in the Capitol. I guess I'd always thought that since most of the Peacekeepers come from District 2, that Brock was among those. Or, at least, a lot more of the Peacekeepers I know would be from there. Maybe it's only the Head Peacekeepers who are from the Capitol. _Didn't Brock mention a school when talking to Leon? _Otherwise, beside his words being mocking, the aspect of knowing what he's been doing to them makes me upset.

"Snow promised me–"

"Ah, but he promised you _after_ the war," Brock inputs. I can hear the satisfaction in his voice, that he caught me unprepared. "In fact, we've just started a new method with the feisty one of the group. What's her name? Jonah? Oh, I don't know." He smirks at my wide eyed stare. "Anyway, it's this fascinating thing. Hi-jacking. Have you ever heard of it? It's brilliant, really."

Before he can go on to explain the method to me, Leon comes to me as my savior. He marches to my side, doesn't even glance at Head Peacekeeper Brock, and says, "It's time we got you back to your room, Miss Everdeen."

Brock's laughter is booming. "The nursemaid to the rescue is it? How does it feel to be a real babysitter, Mr. Dane?" Leon doesn't raise his eyes, but they merely fall to the floor. "I see how it is. I'm too sickening to look at? Isn't that how your wife put it? Ah, well, she's probably dead by now. Wouldn't you think?"

Leon's face changes from pale to purple in his sudden spurt of anger. "You know nothing," he spits at the man, who is about three times his size. And a man, even I, myself, fear. Head Peacekeeper Brock's face stills at the snarl, then narrows his eyes.

"Watch your tone. Snow might not have sentenced you to the same fate as Mrs. Dane, but they're still looking for evidence. The moment they find the right proof..." Brock makes a crude gesture of hand and throat, defining to Leon just what will happen at that moment. The whole time, a huge, malicious grin spreading across his darkened face.

"I'm innocent of treason," says Leon, simply, sharply. He has managed to reel in the worst of his anger, and very quickly takes me by the shoulders and ushers me away. Neither of us glance back.

We take an elevator down a floor or two. I know we are on the hospital floor of the underground, where I am taking residence in a permanent room, and am taken daily to the cold, stiff showers with concrete floor and silver knobs. I try to tell Leon I wish to shower first, before dealing with doctors or nurses, but Leon won't have a word. He tells me that Snow has told him that I'm due for a ultrasound, right now, today.

Upon arriving there is a team of doctors waiting. Leon leaves almost immediately. So while they are talking among themselves I wander over to the bedside table where a bowl of soup and a roll sit. I pick up the bread and munch on it. And I make a show of slurping the soup, hoping that it'll stick into the doctors' minds that maybe I don't need to be forced fed my food through a tube of nutrients.

After a handful of introductions between them and me, all of their names and professions go in one ear and out the other. They give me a handful of my usual pills. There's the tiny blue one, an odd oval shaped green one. I try not to hiss when they stick a needle into my thigh, injecting something that stings. They say it's one of the final rounds of Maternal Steroids; it'll probably start to itch later.

None of them ever actually look at me. They do talk, though, with heavy Capitol accents, but only to each other. The stuff they talk about isn't about me, usually and most of them are so generic looking I'm a bit put off. They're like stylists because of the way they work on me without really seeing me... but _almost _normal. They talk about smart things, not gossip. Things I don't even get. A handful of them have tattoos, or strange glasses, feathers in their eyelashes, but none of them has dyed their skin.

They make me stand, sit, feel around my back and shoulders and belly. They take my head into their hands, tip it this way, press a finger into my scalp, asking if it is sensitive. When their words are directed at me they are in short, simple questions. _How are you feeling? Does the fetus kick? Is there anything bothering me? Need any medicine? Any strange pains? Memory loss? _All of the question I either shrug at or answer with a simple yes or no.

Finished with the usual things, all of them, but one, makes their way to the door. Clip boards in hand as they scribble across them furiously. I wonder what they're writing, then don't care. The one still remaining is a woman, who sits herself next to me on the side of the cot.

She's a nimble woman with cardinal colored hair tied back with a golden bow. Young compared to the other white haired doctors, but long past my own age. Her voice is friendly when she greets me. "I'm going to be doing your ultrasound, Miss. Everdeen. Please, help yourself to the water." Her frail hand flicks to the glass next to my bed, and as she crosses over to a cabinet on the opposite wall, uncertain of what to do, I take it and begin to sip.

The machine isn't very large and she rolls it over. One part is a screen and the other is a 'wand', as she calls it. She waits for an invitation to sit on the edge of my cot and then proceeds to apologize for the coming check-up she'll be doing, introducing herself as Mrs. Hendrix.

Determined to be good, I don't object when she requests I strip. I take off the Capitol's Mockingjay suit carefully, piling it on a nearby chair, then shivering in the cold. Mrs. Hendrix hands me a rode to pull over my head, but that hardly does much, since after she requests I lay down, she hikes it up to my ribcage. With my stomach exposed she starts to feel across my mound with her cold, long fingers. Her nails are gold, sparkling, and she pauses momentarily to admire them, before giving my stomach a good jab.

"Let's measure you, huh?" Mrs. Hendrix chirps.

After the ordeal of standing, measuring, and weighing she tells me I'm on the expected track. _Glad I can do this right, at least. _I sit back down on the cot to have the wand immediately replacing her hands on my stomach. A cool, chill-worthy jell spreading beneath it. "What... what exactly is an ultrasound?" I finally ask, as her intent stare is on the static-filled screen that just baffles me.

"It gives a peek on the inside. You're already entering your third trimester and I need to check up on the baby's heartbeat after all the mental and emotional stress Snow's put you through." _Does she just mean Mayor Undersee? Or is she referring to the past two years of Hunger Games?_

I shift under the wand. "Is it okay?" I find myself asking. I feel compelled to know. I've worked so hard to protect my child all these months that I deserve to at least know how it's doing, right?

"Okay?" the doctor repeats me. Mrs. Hendrix overlooks me with her cool blue eyes. I can tell she's just recently seen the ceremony. She's conflicting herself over whether she should dislike me or be grateful toward me. Whether or not what side she chose her tone is cold and hard, "This baby will have a hard first year of life. With the Games and those days of incompetent care, no medicine, no check ups, all the fighting. Before we knew you were pregnant you were unconscious for a two months! If this baby isn't born in the Capitol... well it'll be dead before you can hope otherwise."

I sit up abruptly, my robe falling back into place and I push away her hands. "What do you mean if it's not born in the Capitol?" I snap. My uncertainty boils behind a masked expression. "You mean a hospital, with doctors and machines, don't you?"

"No, I mean the _Capitol_," Mrs. Hendrix corrects sharply. "This child will need ever recourse we have to offer. Every high quality and up-to-date technology we possess. And the greatest effort of the most accomplished physicians that only the Capitol breeds. No hospital has our same supplies, except District Three who made them. But you can't even go there. They've burned their own hospital to the ground, murdering all the Capitol doctors residing within." The woman's angry now.

Before I can respond, find the proper way to defuse this, Mrs. Hendrix grasps one of my ankles, ties it down with a leather strap and repeats the process with my other one, and my wrists. I'm sputtering too much from her claim to fight her. _How come my baby can't survive without the Capitol? _And I know she just told me, but this woman has never been to District 13. What if she's right, though... what if not even District 13 can provide to me what my child will need?_  
_

The wand is back on my abdomen. Mrs. Hendrix starts writing on a clip board. Traces something out of the static that just looks like a mess to me and then she's turning it from my view. Presses a few button on the screen and smiles. She starts to sketch something, mutters things and not twenty minutes later, she has me cleaned up, has removed the machine, and closes the door behind herself with a slam.

Out of everything that I need to worry about, the one thing I can think once she's gone, is that now I have to pee, because of the water she'd made me drink. I stare at the door a few feet away, sadly tugging at the restraints she'd forgotten to remove.

For ten minutes, I'm at war with my bladder and thoughts. _Your child needs the Capitol. _Why? I sincerely inquire. Why does it need them? These heartless, manipulative people? Is that true, or is it just a trick? Do they want _me_ to sabotage my own rescue? Would they know there is one? Will there ever be one? And if there is will I sabotage it?

Peacekeeper Leon enters the room. He hurries to untie me and I rush to the bathroom to relieve myself. When I come back he's waiting at the door, Mockingjay suit hanging over an arm. "This way, Miss Everdeen. They're waiting to escort you outside."

"Thanks," I say as I pass him. This is the usual routine. I spend the day being the Mockingjay, morning getting dressed for it, noon to late evening playing the part, then I come back here for a doctor check up. Then Leon hands me over to a escort of Peacekeepers who take me to my shower room, where I'm not allowed out of at least one persons' sight. I'm considering highly dangerous, despite my deal with Snow. Also, very self harming, and must be put a stop to if I attempt to do so.

Yet, I am glad for these trips of daily washing. I get to scrub away my hurts. Find freedom in the hot water rolling across my flesh. Let the make-up of that day melt off of my face. These are rare moments of alone time; though there is always someone in the shower room with me, only a fogged glass door between us and even more Peacekeepers standing outside the door, it's still alone to me.

And there, I get to feel what I want. I can hate how I should. Hate what matters. And hating Snow has become the focus of my entire existence. If I don't hate him, if I don't concentrate on that hatred and nurture it with everything I have, then I am sure that I will end up losing my mind.

Since those first few months with him where he had violently taken me from the arena and then wiped away my weakness with doctors and surgeries as a form of gentleness (had he thought that would somehow appease me?), the daily ritual of my life had been centered about him. Apart from those torturous two weeks in the cell, where I lost Mayor Undersee, found out what I have to lose for real, Snow is one of the few constants in my life at this time.

While him and his people changed me, taught me to lie, I only learned to hide my hatred better. Not that it faded or they broke me, or that they've tamed me. I'm still the girl on fire. Only I'm on pause, waiting for the right moment to burn again. Maybe that time won't ever come, but underneath, I nurture this fire starting hatred, waiting for a chance..

I pay little attention to the five Peacekeepers who are escorting me down the hall. We pass many rooms, closed doors. Familiar doctors. Some wave at me, even smile. Thank me for the speech I gave not two hours ago. Tell me I did great. All of them making me scowl worse than the last.

Finally, we reach the door, and I don't wait for their permission, but merely push it open with a palm. Inside is the rather large room, about the size of a normal living room. A nice long mirror on the right wall, directly across the shelves of towels and soups and fancy shampoos. A hamper sits right outside the stall of the shower, which is really just concrete, thick walls shorter than the ceiling but not short enough to look over. Only the glass door allows you to enter the shower that takes up a good half of the room, sitting directly across the doorway.

Without much care I begin to pull the pins from my hair. I smell of hairspray and perfumes and this weird unexplainable doctor smell, which is just unpleasant. Constantly, I complain to Leon how awful things smell, or how strong people wear their perfumes, but he only shakes his head; _my wife used to complain about that when she was pregnant, _he had said once, but never mentioned her again.

Freedom in here means freedom to worry. I worry myself over the future. Johanna's new form of torture. In my head I come up with arguments to shout at Snow about what I think about this. My thoughts go to the baby, too. Was that a ploy or the truth? Does it need the Capitol.. or does it not. Around and around my thoughts go as I walk toward the shelves.

There's a soft creak of the door opening and closing behind me. My guard. I pay as little attention to the Peacekeeper with his plastic face cover and white uniform as I do all the others. I begin to choose the soup I want from the shelve, a small green bar that reminds me of pine trees, when I catch them fidgeting at their place next to the door.

They clear their throat. As if I'm taking to long? I scowl darkly at them. I snatch a towel now, tossing it over the top of the fogged glass door. The soup I set beside the hamper as I begin to reach for the string of the robe I wear.

_Movement. _Out the corner of my eye, the mirror on my right reflects the movement of the Peacekeeper. I can hear their footsteps too, as they walk toward me from behind. A hand extended to my back. I tense, feeling their hand slip over mine.

I whirl on my feet, heart suddenly jumping. "You would take advantage of a pregnant–" but my shout is lost there, mid-sentence, as I throw an arm across the man's chest, making him _humph _at the impact.

I stopped because of the hand that clamps over my face. A bitter, lived-wired panic runs across the surface of my skin. _He's going to rape me, _I think, unbidden. He pushes me toward the shower, head turned, looking over his shoulder. Is he worried my shout was heard by the guards outside the door?

I begin to thrash. Kicking, punching, flailing. The Peacekeeper is trying his best to control me, but doesn't hurt me. Even when I strike a particularly painful blow to the protective plastic over his face, and blood drops from his face to the white shirtfront of his clothes, he still doesn't strike me.

"No!" I cry when he lets go my mouth, only to spin me around, my back enveloped by his chest. Slowly, using his weight against mine, he lowers me to the concrete floor of the shower. "I swear-"

"Katniss," they hiss in my ear, quiet. "Stop yelling. They'll hear you." That's when I freeze. The Peacekeeper is curled around me, crouched behind me, as I'm forced to bend on my knees, both wrists in custody of his hands. But it's not a painful grip.. it's a gentle one. A warm, calm grip as I feel his hot breath against the back of my neck. "I'm sorry," they whisper, releasing me.

I stumble and roll, laying out on the ground, on my back, and he falls onto his backside, defeated. He throws his face protector aside, running two hands through a ruffled pitch-black head of curls. "I didn't mean to scare you," Peeta mumbles.

I sit up slowly. Grey eyes meeting wide crystalline-blue eyes as Peeta raises his head again, blood trickling from his nose. "Katniss," Peeta says and I clutch his forearms, for support, because I'm suddenly lightheaded.

Then he draws closer, rising to his knees, and his hands are cupping my face. I'm at loss for words. His eyes flick down to my stomach, a look of wonderment crossing his expression, and his hands drop to it. Fingers spanning as wide as they can to cover the circumference of my abdomen. Almost as if he can't decide what is more important to cradle, one of his hands returns to my face, holding onto the under side of my jaw. The look of wonder on his face is expected. I knew he'd be happy about it, delighted... and I feel guilty, a little, about how the baby all this time has only been a condition. A pro and con somewhere on my list. It still is, but seeing Peeta look up at me, blue eyes fevered, like a child's, I can't make my mind process it.

I open my mouth to say something, I don't know what, anything. "How..?"

"It took months," Peeta says. "I thought Coin was trying to keep me locked up in District Thirteen, but she's been working on getting us in here since the beginning. She needs you back, Katniss. I need you..."

"_I need you,"_ I had told Peeta once. I remember as if it were yesterday. Out in the middle of the forest, the night as our cloak, the owls singing a lullaby in the distance. And now we're here. I can't help but think that night was our turning point; the stolen, drunken kisses turning into _this. _Me, pregnant, locked away in the Capitol, admittedly in love. Peeta, dressed as a Peacekeeper, sneaking around the mansion, pinning me in the shower room. The last thing I expected.

"This?" I breathe. My eyes travel away from his eyes, to everything else about him. _What exactly is this?_

There is a sudden, sharp knock on the door outside the shower and Peeta's hands rip themselves away from my face and stomach. "I don't hear the shower running!" shouts a Peacekeeper.

Peeta winces. "Another time." He turns to me, a longing in the back of his eyes. _Is this real? _Am I just imagining this? Like today, when I thought I had seen Finnick's face. And how can this be real? Everyone knows who the victors are... everyone can recognize the victors. _But you didn't recognize Peeta, _I think.

Hesitantly, I reach toward him. _This can't be real. I slipped and fell inside the shower and now I'm hallucinating. _Peeta clenches up when he sees I've moved a hand, fingertips touching his cheek, lightly, a kiss of air. His eyes are wide and startled and scared. _Scared?_

"This is a dream," I say.

"No, it's real, Katniss," Peeta whispers.

"No. This is a trick." Why am I so breathless? I bite into my cheek. Still, he makes no move away from me and I make no move to rise. "Why is your hair black?"

"Because I have to be careful about who I look at. If we didn't have the inside help this would have never happened..." he pauses, eyes flickering to the shower door. "Katniss, I have to.."

Something blooms in my chest seeing Peeta's face again. It's so hopelessly complicated and thrilling and disorienting that I have to shove it aside. _You came here for a reason, _I remind myself. My hand withdrawals from his face.

"Okay." I wonder what he meant about being locked up in District 13. Who President Coin really is. How he actually got here. The excuses he had to tell. I know what I'm suppose to say, but the words don't come.

"I'll explain everything." Peeta rises, steps from the shower, looks once over his shoulder, then picks up his face protector. "Trust me," he says when he closes the door behind him.

It takes me several minutes to stand, turn on the shower and even then, I have trouble focusing on the act of washing myself. Especially with Peeta a couple of yards away. "Finnick's here, too," I say, the sound of the running water drowning out my voice.

"Uh, yeah," Peeta says. I can hear he is right around the corner of the fogged glass door. As little space between our bodies as modesty requires. "Finnick, Boggs, me, and a handful of other rebels and traitor Peacekeepers you don't know. We're spread pretty thin, though."

"How does it work.." I start, running my hands through my wet hair. "Why doesn't anyone recognize you?"

"They do," says Peeta. "But it's not uncommon for people in the Capitol to get surgeries to alter themselves and resemble famous victors. I have all the forged histories, all the doctor bills to say that's what I've had done... it's feeble, but enough." I can hear the smile in his voice. "There's over three hundred and thirty other Peeta look-a-likes in the Capitol. Ten of those are Peacekeepers, and I'm the eleventh. Oh," he pauses, "my names Coel Meddek."

"Peacekeeper Meddek." _Would it be inappropriate for me to request Peacekeepers? _I know it is. Especially one that is a Peeta look-a-like. "I missed you, Peeta.." I say, with some difficultly, barely allowing my voice to raise.

There is silence. For a minute that pause drives me wild. _Say something. _Anything. Tell me you love me, still. That you're not angry about the baby... then Peeta sighs. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry?"

"About the.. the baby. I had no idea, please believe it. I should have..." he makes a sound of helplessness. "I wish I could take away the past few months. Over and over in my head I go through what happened that night before the Games and I just.. all those things I could have done.. to prevent this. I'm such an idiot, Katniss. And I'm sorry I ambushed you right now. I should have done something, said something before I reached out. I just.. you're.. it's been so long since I've seen you. I didn't know if you wanted me to be here. Maybe you would rather have Finnick or.. Gale." Slowly, each new word he gets out I begin to pause in my meanderings, hands falling away from my hair and face, listening. The water dripping across my face. "I should have asked before I touched the baby, too. I'm sorry about that. I couldn't.."

"Peeta," I interrupt. _Odds, it is so strange to have him here. _Is he truly real? Yes. He's here. And I remember that I had not wanted President Snow to take away the memory of our act, to poison it, but that's exactly what Peeta has done. He thinks I regret all of it; sex, baby, him. It takes me a moment longer to completely register him... why he seems so...overwhelmed, flustered, ambivalent. _Distant, _almost. _Uncertain,_ that's something new. _Unsure, _and that heartens me. Worried as if I would reject his company, or that after so long I might not care for him. Just like last time I had played the part of lover, then after weeks of waiting and recovering, after our first Hunger Games, when we met again, I told him it was all fake.

The thought brings me up short, because the last time we were together I remember a certain spark igniting in me, from those kisses that could never be satisfied. And he thought I would shove off his comforts or excitement at seeing me again? Subconsciously, I'd been...hoping? No, _expecting_, hugs, kisses and soothing words the moment we're reunited. Not a skittish boy, afraid to frighten me.

Wishing to right this, to let him know that this isn't the case, I move away from the shower. I reach the door, push it open. The action is so simple, yet I'm jittery. Slipping out onto the tile floor, water gathering underneath my bare feet, I see Peeta turn his head, surprised. His eyes widen at the sight of me; uncaring, because really, what has he not seen?

"I'm glad it's you," I say. _Not Finnick or Gale._

Peeta's eyes gaze into mine, imploring, sad, hopeful. "Really?"

"Really." I lean into the cold concrete wall, halfway out and inside the shower. I press a cheek into the doorway, one hand still gripping the handle of the fogged glass door. And momentarily I close my eyes. "I'm not... I don't hate. The baby, I mean. I'm not upset.. "

Peeta's hand is on my face. I open my eyes. His face is tender. "Really?"

I laugh now, quietly. "_Really_."

"I love you," says Peeta, confesses, rushed. And he seemed content at that, just telling me. Like he just wanted to share. Because again, he traces the heart into my cheek, and turns away, looking toward the door to the hallway. It's as if I've been dismissed, told to finish my shower in peace.. but I don't.. that's not. I'm frustrated. Mentally incompetent when it comes to these things.

_And here I thought it'd be easy to let him know this over camera._ I reach for his hand, snatch it out of the air as he withdrawals it from my face. I pull it sharply down to my stomach, the bulged, deformed piece of me. I make contact when his eyes snap to my face, startled, both hands covering his there. "This is your baby, Peeta." _Stupid, he knows that. You were suppose to say_ _that you love him._

Peeta is confused, eyebrows pushed together. "I-I know.." but doesn't sound that sure.

_Odds. _"I mean," I take several moments, swallowing the lump in my throat as I feel the heat rise in my cheeks and at the back of my neck. Water drips down the length of my nose from the strands of short, wet hair on my forehead. "I'm.." _having it? _That's not right. He knows that, too. "Its.." _the reason I didn't throw myself from a ten story building? _No, not that. _Damn it, Katniss, what did you want to tell him?_

"I suck at words," I confess and then push myself onto my toes, lips pressing into his.

The kiss is innocent at first. Then, once I realize just how much I missed him, how my lower abdomen aches at the feel of him pressed against my wet body, warm, solid, _Peeta, _I let go. We kiss until I can't breathe, and even then, we pull apart and Peeta's lips are all over my face. Lips traveling up my cheek, down my nose, pressing into my forehead. One hand tangled into my short wet hair and another still locked in mine over my stomach, I finally say this, "It's burnt bread.. it's like the dandelions."

"The what?" Peeta asks pulling back so that our eyes can meet. He doesn't look at me like I'm crazy, he looks at me like I have said something truly intriguing. "Burnt bread.. dandelions? Who?"

"The baby," I say. It's a new way to view the child. But at least it's not a burden anymore, nor parasite. "It's like the bread you gave me when we were kids, you remember that, don't you?"

"I haven't forgotten, never."

I'm surprised by that, but not deterred from my current revelation. My lips press into his again, thanking him, he remembers, he did that for me. Then I pull away. "After that, the next morning. When we saw each other across the school yard.. you looked away and I looked down, to see that the dandelions were in bloom. I remembered then what my father taught me. Hope. I remembered hope. The ways I could continue to live."

"All that from a few pieces of bread? Burnt bread?" Peeta asks, shrugging. "I don't think–"

"You don't know what that bread meant to me," I snap, then force my voice to soften again. "I owed you everything since that day. My life. Prim's and my mothers. It was more than just bread you gave me, Peeta. And I _hated_ owing you. Then I owed you more after the Hunger Games.. then more after the Quarter Quell.. and even now, I owe you my life."

"Now you're just trying to flatter me."

"No," I insist. "I tried to kill myself the first time I woke up here. I almost did. I was inches from throwing myself out of a window into a drop that would have broken my neck, but I didn't. Because just like with the bread and the dandelions you gave me a reason to live. The baby. I couldn't kill myself or let myself die because I had the baby."

Emotions cross his eyes; shocked, sad, uncertain. "Tell me you'll never try to hurt yourself again. Even if there isn't a baby to stop you or some handful of flowers or bread. Tell me you won't do it just because I love you. Because you know that it'll hurt me. If you think you owe me than pay me back by promising me you'll never die."

"I can't.."

Peeta pulls his hands from my stomach to cup my face, tightly. "Just promise me that you won't do it yourself and that you _fight_ when you can fight. Will you fight? For me?"

He searched my face, desperately, with those blue eyes. Waiting for me to crack. I do owe him, especially if he finds someway to break me out of this place. Which I do not doubt they've got something planned out. And I find myself remembering my mother. The way she looked after my father died; broken, lifeless, gone in spirit. "Always," I tell him. "But you have to promise me, if I die" –he opens his mouth, to argue, but I press a finger into it – "_if I die fighting, _you'll go on to live still. You can't give up. _You won't leave this child on its own," _and my voice at the end is like the crack of a whip, harsh, angry, feeding off of the ball of resentment and conflict I still hold to my mother.

"I promise." I let myself relax some at his words. He runs a hand up from my face, through my damp hair. "You know, I think I like this new hair style. Very sleek." Peeta smiles.

Only he could try to change the subject from suicide and murder and death to something as trivial as my new hair cut. "I think I liked you better blonde."

Peeta laughs. "You should get dressed."

"Yes," I agree. He steps aside so that I can open the shower door all the way. He hands me the pile of clothes next the hamper while I dry myself off and he looks away when I pull on the cotton shirt and waist-banded cotton pants. I almost roll my eyes at the fact; father of my child, that I can't believe I'm having after everything I've claimed all my life, and he still finds modesty to spare.

Just before I move to the hallway door, I pause. The shower is off now, so we have to keep our voices low, and I whisper, "When will I see you again?"

Peeta thinks about it. "Tomorrow. Same place, same time. I got myself on this schedule only for a week, though. I've made some friends in this place." He pauses there, face turning serious. "Don't trust Leon."

"Leon?" I breathe. "Why not?"

"He'll turn us in the second he hears. He's been hot on Finnick's trail, too. He's made complaints about how perfect the surgery he got looks. There are over a thousand Finnick look-a-likes in the history of the last few years, so I don't see why it bugs him that there is a traitorous one among them."

"Traitor?"

"Finnick's assuming the role of a Avox. Don't worry, he has his tongue. We have a very good stylist on our side," says Peeta.

"Portia?"

"Her and our old prep teams. Not Cinna though.. we haven't–"

"He's here," I blurt, then make my voice quiet, glancing at the door. "Madge, too. Johanna is also here but the last time I saw either of them was three weeks, maybe four. It's been a long time since I've been in the cell or had to visit Head Peacekeeper Brock. They have to be included into the plan."

"I'll talk to the others about it," Peeta nods. "I'll come up with something."

"Good."

We pause, falling into an awkward silence. I don't want to leave. He doesn't want to let me go. _When will we see each other again? What if he's wrong? What if he gets caught or I make a misstep, have to visit Head Peacekeeper Brock? Could Peeta be found out and placed in the cell with the others? _I can't decide if the relief of seeing him again, talking to him.. letting him calm me, if that is worth the risk of losing him because of it.

"Remember our promise."

"Could never forget it," Peeta quips.

I turn to the door, grab the handle, then spin on my toes, kiss the side of his neck. I would have gotten his lips if he hadn't pulled the face protector on again. "I'm sorry about your nose," I say, before opening the door, righted. I march out into the hall.

The walk back to my hospital room is not as relaxed as the way from it. Now that I know within the ranks of Peacekeepers escorting me is Peeta, I find my nerves react to this abnormally. I force myself not to turn around when I enter the hospital room where Leon is waiting to greet me.

"Did you have a nice shower?" muses Leon from his seat on a chair next to my cot. I glance at him. He's reading something; a newspaper.

"It was fine."

"Good," Leon says, raising his head. There is a look in his eyes I don't recognize. "President Snow has somethings he wants to show you. Your fellow rebels have suddenly surged back to the front of this war and I think he's got a few words about that, too."

It's only thanks to the weeks of lying practice that I am able to hide the panic and fear from him. And all I can think is that, _thank the odds I learned. _Otherwise, I don't know how I'd be able to face Snow, knowing that Peeta and the others have managed to infiltrate his mansion.


	8. Chapter Eight

_**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

_A/N: This one is a long one. I know, but there are a lot of important bits here. Plus, lots of Katniss and Peeta at the end. If there are parts you think are unimportant, you are wrong. Nearly everything in here is needed. Also **NOTICE: I have posted a Peeta POV on my profile for those** **interested.** I'm sorry about typos. Thank you for reading and for reviewing. I feel like I should point out how I've made Leon to replace Boggs to Katniss in this version of Mockingjay and in some ways Boggs is what he was to Katniss, but in this story he is that to Peeta. (Though as of now it is weak.) Peeta is very important in this coming week to Katniss; he makes her realize and develop in many ways she's unable to do herself. -Taryn(:_

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Chapter Eight

I just want to leave this place. I want to go back to Peeta. Where is President Snow? Does he hope to leave my thoughts wondering and eventually allow that to drive me insane if he never shows up? Because they are getting at it. I keep regretting everything I didn't say. _Why didn't I ask Peeta about Prim or my mother or even Gale? _I was too distracted by him to remain on subjects of actual importance. I should have asked him where the others are in case I have need of help. I should have asked him what the plan is. Where this is going. And Prim. Why didn't I ask about Prim? _How is she? What is she doing? What happened to District 12 when they were bombed? Who else is alive? Does Prim have a message for me? Does anyone? _So many questions I should have asked.

Tomorrow evening won't come soon enough.

I want to ask all these questions, and I want to know about Prim. Smile at knowledge my mother is with her, _really_ with her. I want to find comfort in knowing Gale is healthy and that he'd managed to help people escape District 12. But most of all, I just want to hear that crazy, stupid boy with the bread's voice as it tells me something, in his crazy, stupid way, just to give me the hope that only Peeta in this _crazy, stupid _reality can give me.

Just as the thought runs through my mind, the television on the wall to my left stirs to life. My eyes raise from the surface of the scarred silver table seated in front of me to focus on the blue thirteen that flashes across the screen. A sharp and female voice eludes from the speakers, "Attention citizens of the Capitol, this is a message from District Thirteen," and then not two seconds later the screen comes to life, that stupid crazy face of Peeta stilled inside the shot.

I don't know what to make of it at first. Peeta introduces himself to the nation, a strained smile crossing his face. He looks nothing like the Peeta I just left; black haired, burly, healthy. This Peeta is weak and there are dark purple smears of color underneath his eyes, accompanying a large green and yellow bruise radiating across his left jaw. _It was filmed a long time ago, _I conclude.

Peeta talks about the Games. He explains to the people of Panem the last few moments we had together and how much he wished he'd taken better care to hold me close. "That last night… to tell you about that last night… well, first of all, you have to imagine how it felt in that arena. It was like being a child trapped inside a closet. Only this closet is underground. You're just one person, stumbling, lost in the dark that expands forever. And all around you, you imagine these things reaching for you… breathing down you neck... alive, invisible, and completely unfightable. The world hangs above your head, ready to fall on you and end your life in a moments notice. Every tunnel promises a new horror. You have to imagine that in the past three days, seventeen people have died—some of them defending you. At the rate things are going, the last seven will be dead by morning. Save one. The victor. And your plan is that it won't be you."

My body breaks out in a sweat at the memories he pulls to the surface of my mind. Trapped. Darkness. The chill that reached into your skin and into your bones, curling up around your joints, until you're stiff. Around me I imagine the floors of mansion overhead; the equivalent of the caves. Peeta doesn't need a brush to paint images from the Games. He works just as well in words. Yet, I can't decide if this is something to admire or fear.

I can't seem to make sense of why he is there, on the screen, in some place I don't recognize. Why is President Snow choosing to show me this? I recall the first time Snow made me watch a video of Peeta. It was the time Peeta had rescued Annie Cresta from District 4. Then it had been to see how Peeta's action would make me feel and how it would affect me. Now? Would it be the same? Is Snow hoping to see me grow invested into this new show of rebellion? Are these propos all just to make the Capitol think District Thirteen is spending all their time making these?

"Once you're in the arena, the rest of the world becomes very distant," Peeta continues. "All the people and things you loved or cared about almost cease to exist. The darkness and the monsters in the tunnels and the tributes who want your blood become your final reality, the only one that ever mattered. As bad as it makes you feel, you're going to have to do some killing, because in the arena, you only get one wish. And it's very costly. It costs a lot more than your life. To murder innocent people?" Peeta pauses, voice thick and regretful and dark. "It costs everything you are."

I realize a hush has fallen over me, my body careened forward against the table, and I can feel it spreading across Panem. A nation leaning in toward the screens. Because no one has ever talked about what it's really like in the arena before. This is District Thirteen's first publicity since the Quarter Quell. Peeta goes on. "That last night, my wish was to save Katniss. The mutts took all of us by surprise. I knew that there was something planned, to some extent. That there had to be truth in what Finnick, Johanna, and Beetee were saying.. because Katniss believed. But all of it surprised me and when I finally came to in District Thirteen, no one can imagine the pain I felt knowing she'd been taken by the Capitol."

Someone enters the room and I turn to see President Snow. He motions a hand back to the screen: _Please, don't let me interrupt. _It occurs to me suddenly, this is what Leon meant by the rebels becoming apart of the war again. And this is also why the Capitol won't go looking for Peeta in the Capitol; because they think he's hard at work making these videos. And no doubt there are more just like it. All of them that include Peeta and the others appearing feeble and speaking only useless words that won't matter in the long run.

"I thought I'd never see her again," Peeta murmurs, heartbreaking. There is a crack of static. President Snow appears. He's explaining that this is all just a breech in security. Then Peeta's back, still standing in the same surroundings as before. Somewhere in the woods. "I thought that it was only a matter of time before... before Snow killed her. And I was hoping the least I could do was die with her."

President Snow takes a seat across from me. I see out the corner of my eyes that, he, too, is watching the television. Measuring the decision by his facial expression I don't think he looks angry or upset with this video. But then again, when have I ever been a good reader of expression?

"My plan that night was to save Katniss from everything; the other tributes, the mutts, the Capitol," Peeta says, his voice somehow stronger. I look to him again. "Then, in that moment, I wanted to make her victor and to save her in those Games. Or if the rebels were really coming.. then I wanted that even more." Peeta's eyes finally lift to the camera for the first time through this whole propo. I've never seen him so impossibly breathtaking. His hands raise and he lifts something off the edge of his shirt: a bird, blanketed in gold, perched inside the gilded ring.

My mockingjay pin."And my plans haven't changed."

There is a pause and my heart picks up to a slow, tantalizing gallop inside the bottom of my throat. "President Snow used her to send a message?" There is no anger in his voice, but I can see the way his jaw clenches, in determination, in defiance. "She thinks this war is a bad idea?" _This was taped before a long, long time ago, _I think, knowing this because I've just seen Peeta today and he looks vastly different. Also because in the propo Peeta does not mention anything about my new title, only the ceasefire. _Was this made immediately after my first interview with Caesar? Would Snow make that connection? When was this aired?_

Wanting some answers to fulfill my curiosity, I turn to Snow. "When was this?" My voice is unsteady, uncertain. I know this is the emotion he expects me to feel. After all this would be the second time I've seen Peeta in six long months, in Snow's perspective. I would like to keep it that way. Snow can't see the truth in me. I won't let him. I'm a brick wall; a facet of water.

I meet his dark stare across the table and wait. "This was aired today. Right after we filmed the ceremony. It was a counter if I've ever seen one. There are more, despite the fact that my technicians are hard at work to block them out of our televising system. You already saw my previous attempt at defusing it," Snow tells me.

So this _is_ just a ploy. While Snow thinks Peeta and District 13 are focusing all their energy countering _me, _they'll be in the Capitol helping me. Though I know most of what Peeta says in these outdated propos might be void, I still turn back to the screen, because I have to hear. I want to listen. If President Snow thinks me too uninterested will he grow suspicious?

Peeta is still talking. "I've heard Katniss' voice loud and clear, but not her words. And I want her to know that, if she's watching this, I'm not going to give up. I've come too far to go back now. We as a nation, the rebels, all of us can't just _stop_. Not anymore. We'll probably never give up." One of the cameras follows his eyes down to the pin on the front of his shirt. "Do you see this?" I swear I can see the golden symbol branded into the irises of his eyes, the blue acting as though the wavering surface of a pool and the pin a design across the bottom of said pool. "It's hers," Peeta continues. "And I have to trust that she'll find her way back home. Knowing her, she will, and all I can ask of you now, citizens of Panem, men, women, children of all likes... will you wait for her? I'm never gonna leave, are you?" His eyes finally lift back to the camera. Firm, fevered, truthful. "I waited for her before. I'll fight in the meantime. I'm asking for you to do the same."

For one moment there is just that. Peeta's request. Those dramatic blue eyes boring straight through you, his words seeping into your thoughts, nagging at you. _Wait for her. Fight of her. Don't give up. _Even though just before I showed up to this room and Peeta asked me something similar, I find my desire to fulfill the fight request has increased by seeing this. I was in a hopeless, dark, and broken place a few weeks ago, and I find that if I must face such troubles again, I'd be better for it.

Then the screen is tampered. Peeta's figures blurs into another taping. A new propo of Finnick Odair and a dark-haired woman I recognize as Annie Cresta. The last time I saw that woman was when Peeta and Gale pulled her from her prison cell inside of District 4. Compared to that tape and this one I can see that she is much better fed, her desperate green eyes calmer. Finnick holds her in his arms, stroking the woman's bedraggled hair, and they are somewhere in the woods. Taped as they lay in a meadow of grass between trees that tower distantly. They are the picture of beauty, because Finnick is undoubtedly handsome, while Anna is as delicate as a glass doll. Except that beautiful shot if ruined by Finnick. I can hear Finnick's voice, talking of things like secrets and prostitution, and though Annie gets upset, it's perfect. You can see the disgust in her face, the fear, the pain for her loved one. The way her body shakes against his as if she is a sobbing child; and we get to see him comfort her.

I find myself more intrigued with this propo than the last. Throughout the whole thing Finnick has a haunted, dull look in his eyes when he speaks, but you can see him come alive again as he rocks Annie or pauses for breath. You can see he lives for a reason. That he continues to fight, _for her, for love, for freedom. _And all these points are highlighted underneath a tapestry so rich in detail that you can't doubt its authenticity. Tales of strange sexual appetites, betrayals of the heart, bottomless greed, and bloody power plays. Drunken secrets whispered over damp pillow-cases in the dead of night. Finnick was someone bought and sold. A district slave. A handsome one, certainly, but in reality, harmless. Who would he tell? And who would believe him if he did? But some secrets are too delicious not to share. I don't know the people Finnick names—all seem to be prominent Capitol citizens—but I know, from the slowly curdling expression on President Snow's face, the attention the most mild slip in judgment can draw. I think of my prep team. If a bad haircut can lead to hours of gossip, what will charges of incest, back-stabbing, blackmail, and arson produce? Even as the waves of shock and recrimination roll over the Capitol, Finnick surprises even me by the words he shares about President Snow. _Poison_. The random deaths, the suspicious disappearances. They say, they say, they say… Snow has a list and no one knows who will be next.

All I can think is that poison is the perfect weapon for a snake.

Once Finnick has finished his dramatic roll of gossip, I stare at the last impression of him and his mad lover. Somehow my mind goes to of what I thought of Finnick Odair before we met. How Finnick's parade of lovers in the Capitol made me dislike him. But they were never real lovers. Just people like our old Head Peacekeeper, Cray, who bought desperate girls to devour and discard because he could. I want to interrupt this session of Snow and Katniss to find the Avox inside this mansion with Finnick's face and beg him forgiveness for every false thought I've ever had about him. But we have a job to do. I must act disturbed and interested into the rebels and Finnick must remain undiscovered.

Because there is a pause between Finnick's and Annie's propo to the next one, I turn to President Snow. Though I have the ability to hide my emotions, I let them show plainly on my face. Fright. Disgust. Loathing. Even accusation. I have to hold him accountable. This video confirms every horrible thought I've had of him. President Snow smells of blood and festering because he's truly corrupt. A man who drinks his own poison to deflect suspicion.

Snow unfortunately does not meet my stare. Instead he has the utmost regard for the image of Peeta on the screen again. This time he looks less like he's been beaten up and he's wearing some strange suit of armor. Around him aren't harmless trees in bushes. No, it is war. Ruins smoking in the background. A sky of gray and hovercrafts. The orange and sickening red colors of fire emboldening the skyline. Words escape his mouth that I miss, until I realize he's talking about the tragedy of District 8. How the hospital was bombed by the Capitol. All the sick and injured, murdered in cold blood.

Just afterward the screen changes to reveal Gale ankle-deep in the ashes of District 12. I hear only two words out of his mouth as he somberly introduces himself as Gale Hawthorne, before the television cuts out and turns black. Irritatedly I turn to the President. "I was watching that," I snap.

"I think we've both seen and heard enough, Katniss. Don't you think?"

_Katniss? _He's using my first name now, is that it? "No, I don't," I say.

"Why is that?" he asks, measured. But I can see the sliver of uncertainty and anger in the back of his eyes.

"Leon said you had things you wanted to show me. Are these it? Or is there more? I haven't seen.. and it's been so long.." I break off there, eyes cast to the floor momentarily. "Leon also says you have things to tell me. I'm listening," I lift my head again. "As your Mockingjay it's more important that I understand what you want from me. If this isn't some pointless meeting, I'd like to know that now." Already, I know I've spoken too brashly. I can see it in President Snow's face as he slowly rises from his chair. In a snarling way, without holding it in, I add, "I don't want to be poisoned, otherwise."

Snow stops in his rising, eyes and lips narrowing, before he sits heavily into the chair. Composed with professionalism and a strange smugness in his expression, I find my own built up mask slipping slightly in my worry that I'll be punished for this. Snow says, "We both know that we have rather low opinions of each other. And it would be juvenile for me to deny all those things your fellow victor has claimed. So I simply tell you this: There are holes in your friend's story, but most of it, the big portions, are true. It won't matter that I tell you these things because I know that as the Capitol's Mockingjay it is now one of your priorities to keep the government's secrets." I find fear in the way he speaks; I know this tone that he uses in his victory. I feel the apprehension tugging at my heart. "As you know, one step out of line and I take away all your conditions. The baby, mine. Peeta, dead. All the other's tongues, mine. The rest of their life dedicated to serving those who they have betrayed. Aside those, of course, like President Coin who represent far more. They will be publicly executed." His eyes bore into mine. "You are among that list, Katniss."

"It is a good thing that I am the Capitol's Mockingjay, then," I find the words easy to say.

"Yes, rather fortunate you have agreed." There is a wary gleam that I catch in his face. It occurs to me that while I, too, feel wary, I hide it well. So how come he can't hide it? _What if I've been just taking bait? _Has President Snow been making conscious effort to show me the things he wants me to take from him? Is he doing the same thing I am now? Does he hope to make me arrogant when I think that he's weak, that he's unable to hide his own feelings? Suddenly, I can't trust anything. "Do you remember what I told you the first time District Thirteen acted out?"

I try to recall those innocent days before Mayor Undersee. "That I'm to be held accountable?"

"That, yes. And that you don't draw too much from it," says Snow. "I want you to remember what's at stake. I'm trying to help you by this. Sometimes people can lose sight of the important issues when they see things that excite them."

_He treats me like a child. _"I know what I have to do."

"I'll be sure not to let you forget it." There is a pause where we measure up each other's faces. I can see sharpness in his. What does he see in mine? Hardness? I try to smooth my facial muscles. I feel like I've done something wrong. That I played my part too well. What if Snow thinks I think too much of what Peeta and Finnick said? Would he try to crush it? Should I have played flat and uninterested? It's too late to take it back though, so when he dismisses me, my anticipation for tomorrow is not so bright as it was before.

When I do sleep later that night, I dream. Mayor Undersee's wide, bloody smile is the center of the night's horror. Every time I throw myself around a new corner, lost inside the tunnels of the arena, Mr. Undersee is there. His corpse hangs from a noose on the cave ceiling; face mutilated. And every time I whirl around, throwing myself to a new corner, there is another to greet me. Sometimes I hear Finnick's laughing voice from before the Quarter Quell as he is tying a noose. Or there are jabberjays pecking at my hands and face, tearing at my flesh.

Unable to break myself from my sleep, it's Peacekeeper Leon who shakes me awake. In the dim light of the room, his forehead is crinkled with concern as he stares down at me. There seems to be a question or a confliction in the back of his eyes. Tiredly, I shove away his hands, remembering what Peeta said about not trusting him. Only after a few quiet minutes, of which I spend staring at the ceiling, chest rising and falling rapidly, does Leon tell me it's time to join the prep team for another's day preparation.

I arrive to the prep room to be greeted with the dawn. It's the same room as before, Snow's personal prep team on the upper floors of the mansion. Through the window on the far side I can witness the sun rising in the distant. Illuminating the cold, unfeeling room. The orange and yellow light floods the mirrors across the white walls and seems to breathe organic life into the chamber. The whole spectrum adding warm and inviting qualities to my morning as the two men who could not be more cold and uninviting work on my appearance.

Completely devoted to my change from bleary to alert and from Katniss Everdeen to Capitol's Mockingjay, I hardly hear Leon when he asks me what I want for breakfast. I tell him something sugary and soon after he departs to get it. So when I hear the door open again, I turn around, expecting to see Leon, and I stiffen at the sight of President Snow entering. Already dressed and ready for the day; suit on, rose pinned to the lapel, hair groomed.

I'm a put off not only because he's never sought me out before, but also that I'm wearing nothing except for the robe pulled over my shoulders. It has always been that we meet in some post-decided place when it comes to my interaction with President Snow. Therefore I cannot properly process my sudden, unavoidable flash of precariousness that crosses my face. I'm overly sure he saw it. I hope for the first five seconds that he is here only to pass along a message, or to add something onto my script previously forgotten. Except to both my dismay and surprise, after a small greeting to the two men that are the prep team, Snow expresses that he'll wait until they're finished to speak with me. I'm not so tired after that. I find myself forcing my hands not to fidget while President Snow stands silently in the back of the room, watching, waiting.

The prep team won't meet my gaze, but they continue to work. They're just as silent as they have been every time I've had the pleasure of being their doll. That isn't changed. It is the air of heaviness that is supposedly derived from Snow's presence. They strip me with lips pressed in a hard line. I want to tell them that I'm fine with wearing a silk robe all day, but I know that's not acceptable. The two of them wash me with quick hands. Cold, sweet smelling wash cloths wiping away the traces of night sweat. None of it, though, their politeness of my body and their indifference to my nakedness is enough to soothe my nerves that are pulled thin, knowing President Snow is behind me, watching me from every angle as the mirrors reflect my image across the walls. Disgust and vulnerability rises until even my lying techniques seem weak. _I am a brick wall. I am a brick wall. I can't see Snow. I don't hear him. Brick walls can't be naked._

When I am seated again, the robe pulled back over my body, I start to gather my composure. The prep team gets to work on my hair and I try to come up with a reason Snow is here. Does he have something important to say that couldn't be passed to me by Leon or Plutarch and he's just enjoying the show? Is this a threat he'd forgotten to share last night and is willing to wait to let my sweat over it? Has District Thirteen been releasing more troublesome videos for distraction and he's been upset by one? _Or, _I counter myself, _is he still upset about last night? Is he regretting the fact that he showed me those propos? Is he worried that I am up to something as a result? That I am letting these videos 'excite' me too much? _Maybe he even thinks I'm planning some way to speak out today on camera. A hidden message here and there to the rebels that will be watching. I know I won't... but that doesn't mean Snow won't think I will.

The moment I meet his unflinching gaze in the mirror over my shoulder, I know he's here, at this moment, not any sooner today or later, because I'm my most vulnerable. I'm in preparation for the day; still lost between night terrors and readying myself for the change from Katniss Everdeen to the Capitol's Mockingjay. Snow saw last night something that worried him. And now he's here to strike a crippling blow. Has waited for this moment. Wants to use my weakness against me just like the victors in the Quarter Quell had done by unnerving my 'pure' side.

_I just can't let him. _If he thinks to punish me for thoughts I'm not having, I have to make him believe otherwise. That his threats aren't needed. I've agreed to be his Mockingjay so long as he gives me my conditions. Though really, I know I will go through with it because sometime soon District Thirteen along with Peeta and Finnick and the others will find a way to break me out. There is a rescue plan. And that changes _everything_.

"It's a nice morning," I comment. My voice echos in the thunderous silence. Awkwardly hanging in the open. Even the prep team's fingers pause at the sound of my clear, loud uttering.

"Yes, it is. The birds are always so alive at this time of day," says Snow. "I heard them singing in my garden."

He has a garden? Charming. And does he mention the birds in reference to me, the Mockingjay? Or am I taking too much of what he says as a hidden message? "I miss hunting in the mornings," I find myself diverting. If I can just talk of things that make me remember myself, that keep my head out of the gutter, I can survive anything. Whatever he is going to try to frighten me with I won't let it do so. "I used to wake up before those birds and slip out into the woods. Gale, too." Then I glance over my shoulder. "But you already know that."

"I do," President Snow confesses. I watch him in the mirror as he approaches. "I have countless witnesses. Peacekeepers who are willing to turn the two of you out in exchange for them getting to walk away free of punishment, since most of them have traded with you. I could have put the two of you to the death before you even became a problem. Long before the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games."

I'm so invested in the stare that we hold in the mirror that I don't even notice as the prep team finishes on my hair and asks me to stand. "You regret it," I say. Not surprised, per se, but curious.

"I do."

"What else do you regret?"

That question takes the President off guard. He pauses in his walk. The steady gaze of his eyes waver and drop from mine. That somehow sparks something in my chest. _What does a man like Snow regret?_ Is there anything remotely decent that he might regret doing? A misplaced cup of poison? Perhaps, he only regrets drinking from the same cup, giving him those sores.

While he struggles to find an answer to this question, the prep team forces me to my feet. One of them has my Mockingjay suit over an arm and they ask me to shrug out of my robe. I do so reluctantly with one hand reaching for the new source of covering instantly; only I never find it in my grasp. Snow moves again, to my side this time, raising a hand at the prep team. They stare at him, waiting for the order and Snow easily shoos them. No. Don't leave me with him. They're obedient though, and they back away, silent, unquestioning. Leaving me to stand naked in front of the mirror as President Snow stands to my right, just behind my shoulder.

The sudden flare of discomfort is alarming, as is the vulnerability. My skin crawls as my hair rises with the goosebumps, knowing how uncomfortable and unpredictable this situation is. A man three times my age. The president of Panem. Snow, the man who hates me just as much as I loathe him. I move to grab the robe on the floor, to hide, surrendering in the face of this unexpected attack but one of the prep team members rushes forward to stall me. He takes the robe, eyes averted, backing away, as the President begins pace around me.

"You want to know what I regret?" he asks, in an ominous way.

Since the robe failed me I use my arms to wrap around my body in an attempt to obscure myself. I'm unable to decide if my breasts, center, or the baby is the most important thing to cover. Still, I try to come up with a response, a clever, witty one, but my mouth is dry. "What?" Snow pauses behind me and I glance up in the mirror beyond my shoulder to find his gaze fixated on my abdomen. The arm over my breasts slides down to wind around my stomach. "_What_?" I repeat, snapping.

"Do you know why we have victors, Miss Everdeen?" His breath whispers passed my ear and the inhale necessary to speak washes me in the smell of blood. Violent images of Mr. Undersee swirl through my thoughts. Seeder, choking in her own blood. Peeta's bloody nose yesterday. I'm surprised by the sudden change of topic, as if he never meant to tell me what it is he regrets, and I find myself easily going along with the change. "Because of the Games."

"No," Snow murmurs, sounding amused. His eyes raise from my abdomen to meet my gaze, only I lower mine again at the sight of one of his arms reaching around my torso, icy fingers resting against the top of my sloping stomach. I'm tempted to knock it away, but I merely tense. _I am a brick wall. I don't feel. I can't smell. _"Because the districts need hope, Miss Everdeen," Snow explains. "Hope, but only a little. It keeps them going. Hope is the one thing that conquers fear as a controlling mechanism."

"It didn't work," I spout off before I can control myself. _No. I'm a brick wall. I don't have thoughts. _I can't let him break through the shell of lies. I cant lose my grip on what he and his own have taught me. It's the only way someone can survive in the Capitol, I've come to realize. You either play by the rules they do, or you'll be drowned by the lies.

Snow laughs, light and completely carefree, relieving me from my distress of being chastened for such a cheeky reply. "No, it did," Snow says. "It worked for seventy-four years. You broke it. You gave them _two _victors and that was too much hope. That only serves to show how precise it all need be."

For a moment that sinks in. I remember him talking to me before the Victory Tour. When he advised me against upsetting their fragile balance. I already broke it by then. At that time he had wanted me to make it seem as though I wasn't giving more hope, over going his system, but it was the Capitol being merciful and compassionate. Now I have to hold back laughter just at the thought. Only my amusement is shot in the face as I catch sight of his gaze, centered on me and my stomach, his fingers suddenly gliding down the taunt skin along the seam of my middle abdomen. I feel my nerves growing tenser and tenser. "What do you hope for in this child, Miss Everdeen?" he asks.

The way he splashes from one subject to the next is either how disorienting his mind works or he is purposely trying to draw truth from me by taking me by surprise. For several moments I don't hear what he just said. All I know is that maybe I shouldn't have acted so taken with the propos last night. When I do listen to him, my mind flickers in an attempt to shut down, to draw away and bow my head like I have so many times before. I can fall back into my shell and allow myself to be hospitalized, but I remind myself repeatedly that I am a brick wall, and that just isn't working, because I find Snow's companionship far more terrifying. _Fight_, I remind myself. Peeta is somewhere, very near, and I recall randomly, that propo and our words last night. _Fight, _Peeta asked me twice in one day, _fight because he's waiting, he loves me. _Don't fall into a shell because things are getting tough.

"Katniss?" Snow inquires when my silence has gone on too long.

I draw in a long breath, forcing myself onto a rational train of thought. I am a brick wall. I can't feel his gaze on my body. My nakedness is no different from others. He can't hurt me. I'm the Capitol's Mockingjay. I let the list roll through my head like the doctors taught me just as much as Plutarch has. I force my hands to fall at my sides. _No fidgeting. _I won't give him the satisfaction of making me uncomfortable.

"I don't know," I say, my voice careful. "What are you hoping for in this child?" _It is, after all, yours. _At least, that's how he views it when you consider the way he has arranged the rules of my conditions.

Snow smiles, those thick lips far to distorted to be appealing or comforting in any way. "I would prefer nothing. That it should not come down to me being involved within its existence. In fact, I've just come here from this morning's war meeting. The topic today was about how we were going to handle your conditions after the war. Would you like to hear the plans we'll be setting in motion?"

Wary, but hiding it, I shrug, knowing by the pleased look in his eyes that this is not something I'll like.

"You love your child, no?" I hesitate. No one has asked that of me; I've only told Peeta I don't hate it. I know Peeta loves it though, and whether I call it another dandelion or a loaf of burnt bread, I nod curtly in reply to Snow's question either way. "You'd do anything for its protection and future?" Snow asks.

"What are you getting at?" I find myself speaking, fed up with suspense. The sooner this is over, the sooner I am dressed again.

"Now, now, don't forget your manners, Miss Everdeen," Snow chides. "As you know the Capitol is free of reapings. Our children are the safest among all in Panem. They never leave the comforts of luxury. They eat all they want, they have clothes of the finest fabrics, and modern medicine District Twelve could have never even dreamed of having at hand. All this, could be for your child." His hand has finally withdrawn from my persona and he lifts his chin to stare me in the face. All professional demeanor. "Once this rebellion is over, the Capitol victorious, I plan on granting you and your fellow victors the immunity you have requested. I will give you all safety within a new Victor's Village I plan on building here in the Capitol, very close by." _Under your watchful eyes, no doubt. _"They'll live out the rest of their days here, with all I've described. Like I also promised your child will be granted safety. I will take it and give it to the caring hands of one of many child-less Capitol citizens." I feel my facial composure slipping, listening to the last piece of information with much panic and disapproval. "The same will go for the other victor's children. I figured if I give you this gift I must extend it to the others as well. They'll be given protection and prosperity and proper parents to raise them."

_This is our punishment. _I can see he's been plotting this. He can't get around my conditions by harming any of the victors; whether execution or by the loss of a tongue or discrete poison. No, he's gone to worse means that I'd not even considered. I told him that his government would be responsible for the protection of the victors, not their children or their children's placement. _Not even my child's. _And he's found a way of making it sound like protection. I think about what's really going to come from this; giving our children to a people who roots on the Career that drives spears through little Rue-like girls. I think about how my child will feed off of excitement watching the Hunger Games. I think about Cecelia, her boys. To whom will they be handed unwillingly over to?

President Snow will give us victors life and take away our children. He will groom them into something that will disgust us despite the fact that we should care for our offspring. The plus side? They won't get thrown into the Hunger Games. Yet, still, I don't know which I'd rather have. _Neither._ If I'm being honest the only way that will happen is if the Capitol burns. If it never rises victorious.

Somehow I know the moment I am free of this place.. I won't hesitate in throwing everything I have against him and his people. _Everything_. If not for myself then for everyone else who has suffered. For Mayor Undersee and his daughter. For Johanna and Cinna and Darius. To those that I love, who have been put through hardship all their life thanks to the Capitol. Those children I faced in the arena two years ago; Clove, Cato, Rue, Thresh, Foxface... slowly, I realize that I'm willing to become a Mockingjay. Not the Capitol's. Never for real. But for the rebels? I try to conjure up the face of that little girl from District 3, but her face isn't there. I can't even remember the guilt I felt from her death. _Because I didn't kill her, _I think. _Snow did._

I know I would never allow this plan to become reality. So in truth this taunt of Snow's does not hurt me so much at all... and I let him see this in my face as I stare back at him in the mirror. Let him see that I am unafraid, until I realize that was the whole reason I've been told this in the first place. Am I allowed to say no? Would that get me back in the cell? Would Cinna's neck suffer mutilation with a simple two letter word that crosses my lips? I'm not sure if I can say no, and I know I won't say yes, even if it means being good. I just stand, staring, waiting. I can't find anyway I'm allowed to argue with it. Eventually Snow fills the void. "Think about it, Miss. Everdeen. Without the Capitol, your child won't get far." And then he waves forward the prep team, leaving the room without so much as a farewell.

_Without the Capitol, your child won't get far. _What does he mean by that? Is he only trying to replant the idea the doctor had originally started the other day? I don't know and it troubles me too much to think of it, so I push it aside quickly.

When the prep team finishes me, I stay where I am, staring at myself in the mirror, waiting for Leon to return. I find the makeup is lighter today. The Capitol's Mockingjay suit is the same. The Capitol's seal stretching itself across the middle of my chest. Fabrics hugging me so tightly it makes it difficult to breathe. The coloring is white, like a Peacekeeper, and a dark blue. I tug at the confining collar, reminding myself of the built in chip there.

Today, I am the Capitol's Mockingjay. In my head, I go through my lines and my expected behavior.

Not too long later, Leon enters the room, dismissing the prep team. He sets a tray of food on the table where I slowly perch myself. I pick at the waffles, finding the syrup on it unappealing suddenly, despite my request for sugar.

"What did Snow want?" Leon asks as I'm sipping at the orange juice. "I saw him in the hall."

I take a moment to recover my thoughts. "He wanted to tell me about the future."

"What did you tell him?"

"Nothing."

Leon puts both hands on my shoulders as to turn me around to face him. "Nothing? Are you certain?"

"Yes," I snap. I'm irritated.

Peacekeeper Leon seems wary. "You know you can trust me, don't you?"

I narrow my eyes. "You told me that whatever I say will be repeated to higher authority. So, no, I don't trust you." I shove his hands from my shoulders and turn away from him, picking at the toast. Somehow though, my curiosity gets the better of me and I ask, "What do you want to know?" I don't know if it's because I'm actually looking for the first time in a long time, but over the past three weeks it seems Leon has lost even more weight and more often than not his appearance is ruffled in one way or another.

"I don't know. Anything. Are you in contact with the rebels?" The question he tagged onto the end is thrown out in the open with the toss of his hands into the air. An exasperated noise escaping his throat as he shrugs and gives me a bemused sort of glance.

"How would I get in contact with District Thirteen from here?" I say, trying to decipher his behavior and convincingly lie at the same time. Leon isn't acting his usual professional self. "Messages sent from the Capitol to there? You're with me all day and night. How would I possibly find the time or resources?"

"I don't know.." Leon runs a hand through his hair, and turns away, but I still see him in the mirrors. To the left and right of the room I watch the emotions cross his expression; conflicted, exhausted, worried. He turns to me once more. "There aren't any cameras or microphones in this room, Katniss. This is Snow's personal floor, so he's never had a need for it, and there are Peacekeepers based on every corner of this hallway. Not to mention the whole building. Whatever is said here is unnoticed."

"So?"

"_So_," he says. I can't help but feel I'm witnessing a man's slight breakdown. "So, what I tell you is a secret. Don't repeat it. You'll only hurt me, and if you don't care about that, Snow will eventually punish you for it, somehow. I don't know why he would, but he seems to take pleasure in your pain." Leon starts to pace now. Back and forth, for the span of four to five feet, which is just dizzying. I sit slowly into the raised chair in font of the vanity, all my attention directed toward the Peacekeeper. For several moments Leon seems to be thinking to himself, then he stops, abruptly. "You remember my wife?"

"A bit."

"Her name is Violet."

"Okay.." I don't see where this is going. I confess I've always wondered what this wife of his did to ruin him so spectacularly, but I never thought I'd get to know. That it would ever be important to me.

"She's been accused of treason on the highest level. In fact, she was on the list of criminals due for execution on Retribution Day, but she fled the Capitol long before her arrest. I'm not supposed to speak with her. I don't even want to... not after, everything she did..." Leon starts to pace again, shaking his head. "I just didn't understand what made her do it, you see?" There is earnest in Leon's expression. "I thought she did it for the Capitol at first. That's why I asked that of you. I thought it would appease my wife, make her recognizable again. But it didn't! And all our friends, all those people I've known for years on her side..." he trails off. Clearly this is a strain on him. "Then I heard those things Odair said.."

"I really don't see what this is about," I find myself saying. Though the mention of Finnick at the end interested me and the fact that Leon's wife was a rebel of some sort was surprising, considering his roots and his profession, I don't know why he's confessing all of this.

Then I do, "I had to know why she admired you, Katniss," Leon says, softer than all the statements before. "She looked up to you just like those in the districts. She said that you were the symbol. The one they were all waiting for. She talked about all those things you did that made her feel something, that made the rebels inspired. And I just didn't understand that claim. I was confused, because everyone I knew turned out to be traitors."

"Everyone?" Because most of those things shocked me to hear, I find this is the only word I get out.

Leon glances up at me. "Heavensbee was my idol as a kid, did you know?"

"I didn't."

"He was. I became close to him in my profession. Thanks to him I rose high in the ranks as a teenager. Especially with my schooling supported by such a influential and wealthy man within the Capitol. I idolized him more than I did my own father. We became friends. I married his daughter, for odds sake!"

Back paddling to keep up, I pull myself a little straighter in the chair. Violet Dane is Heavensbees' daughter? Leon is the son-in-law to the man who tried to break me out of the Quarter Quell? I didn't even know he had children, let alone that Heavensbees had such friends. Though I hardly knew much about him at all to start with. I stare at Leon now, with a new sense of how connected we are. Him, finding himself innocent amongst the ranks of endless traitors, through blood and friendships. People he loved, who betrayed him. Just like how the act of the rescue mission was a betrayal to me because of Haymitch. And Leon sought me out, because he knew I was the reason he lost his wife, the person who led up to the betrayal. The person he must blame for the turning of loyalties within his family. But I couldn't have done that much. Possibly, they were already loyal to a rebellion before me. It was only then, when they had someone to support, did they reveal these insecurities.

I try to put myself in his shoes. To pity him if anything else. I Imagine what I would do if my mother or Prim, or even Gale, suddenly professed a fondness for the Capitol, that they were willing to break laws to protect the Capitol. That deep down all this time they liked the Hunger Games. And I discover it is unimaginable. I, too, would look for excuses. _They were forced. _There's something I'm not seeing. A missing explanation. Something has changed. They're lying. They don't actually mean it. I would go out to discover why this is, even if it risks my career or my life. I would go to the person they claimed to devote their loyalty, trying to understand why they are saying what they say, because I love them and I have to try to understand.

All this time I thought of Leon as either my enemy, a tool of the Capitol, a mouth piece for the Capitol citizens, but he's not quite so big. He's only a little game piece who has been dealt much suffering and one who wanted to understand what bigger pieces caused it. A simple man who loves his wife, but can't because it would mean his life or his tongue.

While I come to these conclusions, Leon is still talking and pacing. I try to keep up with the words spilling out of his mouth continuously. He tells me about his son, who his wife took from him when she fled the Capitol as she was grieving her executed father. Leon shares his worries that Violet has gathered up the remains of her father's plans and is now regrouping with those allies of his that survived Retribution Day. He tells me that he's not supposed to talk to her, but he still has contact to her, because of his son. He loves his son, he tells me. I feel like he doesn't really remember who he's talking to. Like I'm supposed to respond? Or understand? Or explain to him why his wife has done all this to him? No, none of that. He's just venting. At me. Has he lost all his friends because of this? He must, because if he's resorted to sharing his fears and worries and secrets with me, I know I'm the last person he's got left.

When Leon is all out of breath and has no more things to say, he has confessed to me that Violet is hiding in District 3, which is now under complete rebel control. That Violet is also in contact with District 13 and that she taunts to him daily that I'm going to be rescued soon. Which only explains why Leon is getting paranoid. I stare at him, not knowing what I should say. I begin to wonder if Violet is the inside help that managed to get Peeta and the others inside the Capitol, then decide to add it to the lists of things to ask Peeta.

"Okay," I finally say, when he hasn't spoken for at least three minutes.

Leon lifts his head at the sound of my voice. The trouble in his eyes is still there, but less fevered. He's just numb now. All the things that needed to be put out on the table have been set there. It's up to me to make something out of them. Of it, I think I make up a complicated puzzle piece to add to the unfinished image of the war I have in my head. For everything I've learned of the war, there are multiple pieces missing and though this one is a big one, I still feel like I will never truly understand what is happening in the districts until I actually go to them.

As for Leon, I don't know what he wants from me. I don't want to give him anything. Truthfully I don't hate him, but I don't trust him either. If Peeta tells me not to trust him, then I know I won't. Still, I question it.. if only a little. If only because I'm too stubborn not to. Because when Leon asks me in a sad voice, "Are you in contact with my wife, Katniss?" I realize that he is more broken and much weaker than even me.

This answer I give him, because that's all he really wants to know. "No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I've never met, let alone heard of her," I tell him.

There is more silence, more pondering. Leon turns his back to me after awhile, then comes toward me, picks up my uneaten food and says, face composed, "Let's go face the day."

* * *

On my walk to meet up with Plutarch before I begin my day of shooting, Leon tells me in a much more professional fashion all the things I ask about the war. "While you've been attained here in the Capitol, the districts have slowly been going under rebel control. They have Eleven, Nine, and they're _still_ working on Ten. Also I hear that they have set a new goal on District Seven recently, which is surprising since five months ago the Capitol managed to smoke them out by setting the logging woods on fire. Various other districts are at war, but for the most part they're not overthrown enough to be considered rebel, yet. Those ones I mentioned before are just the ones that District Thirteen have meddled with. The Capitol still has majority, but that doesn't mean there aren't rebelling citizens in the districts that they obtain. District Two is our strength."

_"...that they obtain..." _I hear in my ear and I peek at Peacekeeper Leon through a strand of hair on my forehead. I don't know if he didn't notice, but to me I found it interesting. Was it accidental? Subconscious? Is Leon disowning the Capitol? Or does he just not consider himself a part of it at all?

Eventually I ask, "What about District Three? What happened there? I thought the rebels took it."

Leon hesitates. "Yes, I suppose they are rebels. District Three is the one and only district that has managed to regain itself without District Thirteen's help, so many of us consider it a slowly waning victory. The more time that passes without District Thirteen's aid, the higher the possibility it'll fall to the Capitol again."

"But I thought.." Leon cuts me off with a sharp look.

"You thought?"

"Nothing," I say.

He reaches for the handle of one of the doors in this hallway I don't recognize. "Plutarch is waiting for you inside," Leon informs me, opening it and I move passed him, the door closing again behind my back. And I frown because I recall the _"...many of us..." _statement he added after my first pondering.

Leon won't and can't be trusted.

* * *

From this point of the day and on it falls into nothing but a pit of hate. Hating Snow. Hating the Capitol. Hating all the people who run up the streets, around my row of Peacekeeper guards and the camera crew just to hug me, touch my stomach, feel the child kick, and stare up into my painfully stretched smile until they reach their heart's content.

Plutarch tells me almost immediately that this first day I only get to go for a stroll outside the mansion's immediate gate. He primps my hair, and adjusts my uniform, then smiles. And all I can think is that there is no tongue in there. That Darius is the same. That if I make one wrong move, say the wrong thing, step too many steps away from the mansion, the fate awaits many of my loved ones.

There are already people swarming the streets beyond the mansion's gate when Plutarch escorts me to the front steps. All of them just waiting to get their hands on their new Mockingjay. I take careful, awkwardly pregnant step after step, down this elaborate front staircase. Halfway down, already waddling, a Peacekeeper among my guard takes me by the elbow and we fly down the steps this way.

Once we are at the bottom I turn my head to see who it is (secretly hoping it's Peeta), but it's a man I don't know. He's got to be at least forty, with close cropped gray hair and blue eyes. Rather on the burly side, which made the practically carrying me down the stairs act possible. He doesn't return my regard, though, only returns to his spot among the others with his face carefully angled upward and away.

By this point I've given the crowd time to manifest in their noise, their shouts and cries mingling together into a scream of jubilance. Before the gate is opened to omit me into this craze, a pair of Peacekeepers go through first, warding them away a little as to give me and my escorts room. Then I'm pulled through, three Peacekeepers stationed on both my sides and the camera crew keeping pace a few steps to my front, and behind me, too, alternatively swinging to the sides to capture a better angle.

The first person who runs up to me is a woman, holding the hands of two young boys. She is a complete oddity; pink skin, round of body and arms, the children just balls of pale skin, bound by leather jackets that are an unappealing color of burgundy. All of their blue eyes stare up at me with this shining, expectant light. I smile because I'm supposed to. "Hi."

"We made you this, Kat-is," exclaims one of the boys. For a moment his four year old pronouncing of my name sounds almost like 'Catnip' and I find myself feeling a little numb when he hands me a scarf, made of silk and drawn all across it, awkward, ugly little mockingjays in black crayon.

"Thanks," my script tells me to say. I wind it around my neck and smile at them. _See I'm accepting you and your gifts._

Thankfully, after a hug from the mother, they are ushered to the side by the Peacekeepers, a new person stepping up to take their place.

Most of the time I only have to say simple two word sentences, or nod my head, or throw an arm around someone's shoulder when they ask for a photograph. The kids are always an awkward greeting for me, because every time I look at them, I think; _is this my baby's future? The future of Finnick and Annie's kids if they ever have them? What if Johanna has a baby? _I can only imagine the scene that would ensue when someone tries to take something so important from gusty, stubborn Johanna Mason.

Odd men will approach to shake my hand, while women with wigs, whiskers, tattoos of ever type will automatically envelope me in their arms. Only to pull back and laugh, patting my belly, that "gets between us." Children cling to my legs, ask me to tell them stories or sing them a lullaby like I did to Rue. I have no choice but to comply. And all of it is overwhelming, but the fresh air is nice, as long as I ignore the fact that all my soft words, mingling attempts, and compliments through clenched teeth are being aired to every television in Panem.

Sometimes I get the peculiar citizen who pauses at the sight of me; suited up in Capitol branded clothes, hair short and askew, smile plastered over my pale, sun-deprived face. They're not like the others. They have some flat, disappointed glint in their eyes as they shake my hand and I compliment their home. I don't know what to make of them and those come far and few the more space I patrol.

For hours the morning sun glares into my eyes as I force my face to beam. The muscles in my cheeks feel like aching rubber by the time lunch rolls around. I've walked around most of the mansion, saw over a hundred citizens, and still, my duty is not complete. As I'm escorted by the Peacekeepers back into the mansion, Snow greets me at the front door. He says that I'm to start attending lunches and dinners with people that have paid for the luxury of eating with the Capitol's Mockingjay. Tense already, _a brick wall, _I tell him that's perfect, while really all I can think about is that if he's already selling my eating time to strangers, how long until he starts to sell my body? Before the baby is gone? Or would people pay for that? I find throughout the lunch I have lost all my appetite.

All the same, Snow vows to start a routine of this, so I force myself to get through the hour. On the television inside the extravagant dining room are the currently made propos of me, playing throughout the hour. I watch it sometimes, just to keep my eyes from the others. To be forced to sit among Snow's companions, and listen to their laughter and jests, and to feel their eyes slide over to me, considering, perhaps enjoying my humiliation, as they talk of the rebels and their failings, pointing out their flaws, making fun of my old friends, I find it almost worse than the citizens. At least the citizens who don't have the money to eat with me are less deceitful, only shallow and oblivious. Among these wealthy ones they know the truth of my forced decision. And they laugh about it.

For hours all I hear is Capitol accented laughter, all I see are Capitol faces, all I have of home is the child, who slumbers through most of it, rocked to sleep by all my walking. I had thought practicing the lies were bad. That those three weeks of spending my days inside the mansion with a handful of people was the worst thing to endure. This is worse because it seems to take longer. There are so many people. So many things they hand me. The words they say so similar to the others. After lunch I walk beyond the mansion's gate, again and again, greeted with a new round of people. The thing that gets me through it is the hate, and the knowledge that in a few hours more I'll get to see Peeta again.

An hour before dinner, I'm already back at the front of the gate, having finished one of many laps. As a distraction I'd begun to count them but somewhere around twenty-nine it lost its appeal. My feet began to ache too much. All I want to do is sit, when Plutarch comes to me, and waves the cameras down. He's got a note for me to read that expresses my need to be more influential. He wrote that I need to be more anti-rebellion. I need to be a voice. Powerful and meaningful. _Where is your spunk? _it read word for word. I try to communicate to him that I don't really understand what he's wanting from me, but that's no matter. He just stares at me, while backing away, waving the cameras back up. Once he is gone, the Peacekeepers once again move aside to admit the next citizen.

_Be more meaningful? Powerful? _I turn to the man, uncertain. I try to remember what Leon said this morning about his wife being inspired by my actions. I don't remember trying anything special, though. Maybe she meant the berries. Or covering Rue in flowers. How do I do those sorts of things stuck here? It's not something I plan. They just _happen_.

This next citizen looks to be about thirty; unless surgery only deceives that. His hair is brown and his eyes are an almond-shaped green. I smile at his wide, crinkled-eyed grin until my lips feel like they are splitting. _Be meaningful, _I tell myself, but all he tells me is that he can't wait for me to have the baby and start to fight for the war. He wants to see me out there with my arrows, tearing the rebel's ranks apart.

I start to nod, knowing that this is what they are all waiting for in the long run. The moment when I'll start going through with my promises. Once again, I can't help but think the baby is my savior. The thing that I teeter on top of. A ledge that I cling to. Once it is gone though, I will have to do these things that I promise. Neither side expects me to fight while pregnant, but the second I'm not... suddenly, the amount of things I owe Peeta seems all a bit more.

"Yes," I tell him. I hold out my hand, that he takes and shakes immediately, but I hold on to it. I grip it tightly, trying to think of something else to say, something powerful. Something that'll keep me from getting shocked. Only I don't. I can't think of anything good to say, nothing inspiring to do. Not with my script to follow.

I drop his hand, and he turns away. The Peacekeepers move aside for him to exit my circle of space, but the moment their backs close around me again, I wince, the shock traveling harshly down the side of my neck, through my shoulder and fingers and my legs.

Thankfully I only get shocked three more times before I'm called away to dinner. The event passes quicker than the last meal because this time I actually take interest in the food. I eat a lot, considering the full day of walking and sweating. Then Leon meets me at the doorway, as I'm bidding those who paid to eat with me goodbye.

I'm antsy for the rest of the time. I fidget throughout my doctor appointment. It's not a lying fidget. More of a nervous, anticipating fidget. Multiple times Leon glances at me weirdly, or a doctor insists I sit still.

In my head I go over all the questions I have to ask Peeta. I want to talk about Prim, first. Then the rescue plan and if Leon's wife has anything to do with it. After, I'll tell him about all these horrible things Snow's been telling me. The new plan. The way he twists my conditions and uses them against me. I'll tell him how awful it is to meet with all the Capitol citizens. And now that I think of it, I'll tell him the propos distraction plan is working, because Snow thinks that's all the rebels are doing to counter my new title.

By the time the doctors are gone and Leon informs me the Peacekeepers are waiting outside to escort me to the showers, my heart is beating fast. I shouldn't be nervous. It's just Peeta. _What if he's not there? _Wouldn't I know if they were found out? Wouldn't President Snow make a huge deal out of it if he found them inside his mansion? I don't know, but the moment I step into the hallway, eyes flickering from one Peacekeeper's face to the next, I push out a long, fluttering exhale at the sight of Peeta among them. He smiles a little, nervously. Like he's been feeling all the build up I have.

The walk takes too long. The amount of time it takes for Peeta to enter the room after I do is no more than two minutes, but feels much longer. I make sure to turn the shower on the second I enter, so that our voices will go unheard and the moment Peeta closes the door behind him, I stop in my walk, awkwardly still, in the middle of the room.

Peeta pulls the plastic protector from his face and tosses it onto the shelf. The smile is still on his face, but I can see a slight blue-purple hue clinging to the pale skin around his upper lip and nose countering the contentment of that smile. I bite into my cheek, knowing I did that.

"What?" asks Peeta. "No kiss?" He opens his arms to me. "Not even a hug?"

I surrender at that and move toward him, rather quickly and I allow him to pull me in. Arms wound around his torso, his around my shoulders and neck. Usually it's the other way around, I realize, when it feels different. Except I like this better. I like feeling his solid body against mine, in my grasp, real.

Peeta pulls a stray pin from my hair. "I saw you today," he murmurs against my ear.

"When?" _I looked for you, _I think, the words unsaid.

"After lunch, you were on your way back outside, heading toward the front doors. I was taking my daily patrol of the first floor with a handful of others. I wanted to tell you that you looked nice."

"Thanks."

"No problem," says Peeta, more fingers pulling out more pins. Eventually all of my hair is loose and he buries his fingers into the tresses along my scalp, tangling the strands between his fingers. It occurs to me he always does this. I shift away from him, my face away from his chest so I can gaze up at him. He smiles innocently.

I remind myself of everything I need to ask. Because, again, he threatens to throw me off my train of thought. "How is Prim?"

I can see he is taken off guard by my question, but not by much, only the slight raise of an eyebrow. Then he shakes his head, disbelieving, looking distantly over my head. "An angel," he says. His eyes narrow playfully for a moment, "And too smart for her own good. She never lets me finish my jokes." Peeta becomes a bit more serious after that, meeting my gaze. He knows how much this information means to me. "She's grown up so much since the Quarter Quell announcement. I didn't believe it at first, but she's great, Katniss. Really. Her and your mother are getting along fine in District Thirteen, and they're both already into the healing program. Prim started training to be a doctor long before your first interview.. but afterward, she's really gotten into the study of obstetrics and neonatal. I know, long confusing words. Took me days to repeat them after her. She just wants to be ready for you when you come home," now his smiles is encouraging, nudging, just as much as his hand on my back is. "She wants to be a midwife for the baby. That's what those words mean, really, studying things about having babies and how to take care of them afterward. And she made this decision all on her own, just came out and said it one day."

Grown up. Becoming a doctor. Wants to help me through the most painful part of pregnancy. It sounds just like what she should be doing. What Primrose Everdeen has always done. And though I adore that, that she's doing that all for me, I can't help the twinge inside me that doesn't like it. She's my little duckling. She shouldn't be doing all these grown up things. I don't want her there to see me, weak and in pain. Except there is nothing I can do to stop her, and maybe I'm glad, deep down. I know I'm really glad to hear that she's happy, that in my months of tortuousness someone has been getting along better than I, or even Peeta.

Which reminds me. "Gale?"

Peeta's smile is somewhat dimmer. "He's good. Actually, he's a lot better than me at all this military stuff. Him and Beetee get along pretty well, and Coin, too. She likes Gale better because he comes up with these brilliant plans for her armies. I wish I could come up with half the things he does. Just before we got smuggled into the Capitol I think he was being sent to District Ten to help with the siege there." Peeta pauses, seems to remember something and says, "He's also the one who helped save the people of District Twelve when the fire bombs were dropped."

Hearing about Gale is lightening. I search Peeta's face, trying to decide if Gale's reaction to the baby is something I should know about. If it is, Peeta doesn't let on, instead, he says, "Maybe you should shower. They say that if you're taking more than thirty minutes I have to make you get out."

"Oh." I had completely forgotten. Shaking myself mentally I pull away from Peeta and go about the room finding what I need, before I step into the shower and pull off the Mockingjay suit, tossing it over the top of the fogged glass door. Peeta settles in the same spot he had yesterday just beyond the door around the corner. As I wet my face and hair, rising away today's mask, I try to recall the next thing on my list to discuss, but I find my head is blank. "Peeta?" I ask, when there is silence for five minutes. _A waste of five minutes between us. _We have only thirty minutes, and already fifteen of that is gone. "Say something."

"I love you?" he offers, aloof.

"Something _else_."

"Do you want to hear about the rescue plan?"

"That'll be a nice change," I say, knowing he'd make the connection of how unfamiliar those words are. Last time the rescue plan was lost on both of us, but this time Peeta is right inside of it, and it's relieving to know that he won't hold back from me. Suddenly, I remember Leon today, his wife, all my questions about her for Peeta. I choose to save those until the end.

"It's kind of simple, if you think about it. By the end of this week we hope to pull it off. Friday, possibly. If not that day then we have to hold it off until I can get another rotation into this position or anyone else can. We need that because this is the time of day we'll try to accomplish the rescue. Late in the evening. Finnick has noticed how the security on the main floor lessens at night and we're going to have to count on that as a crutch. As for the others, in the cells, that'll be a problem.."

I pause in washing myself. "A problem how?"

"They're exactly two floors below this one, Katniss. That's four floors underground. Not to mention that the floor above this one is the Peacekeeper barracks. The thing we go off of here is surprise and stealth. We don't have the brute strength to get anyone out of here. We have two hovercrafts that'll arrive from District Thirteen at specifically eight. We have a fifteen minute period of time to get you from this room to anywhere outside the mansion and without adversaries."

"I won't leave them, Peeta," I snap.

"I know, I know," says Peeta. "I've been working on a plan. It just isn't complete yet."

"Tell me what you have so far. I can help."

"I don't know.. you might not like it. I don't even like it–"

"Peeta," I say. "Trust me."

There is a small pause, then, "I was thinking that if.. if you could somehow get yourself in trouble, and while I'm around, I can be the one to take you to this cell that you've talked about. That way I have the authority to take everyone in that cell out while I'm there. I could lie about Snow needing them–"

"No," I interrupt. "That won't work. Snow doesn't talk to prisoners. It's Head Peacekeeper Brock who deals with them. If you say Brock needs them, maybe. All of them might be a stretch. And if he's already got one of them, they might get suspicious.. but it might work. Everyone fears him and if they don't relent to you taking them out, you can threaten them that they'll just have to face Brock when he gets upset." Even I shudder at the thought of facing Head Peacekeeper Brock after deliberately disobeying one of his orders.

"Okay," says Peeta. "After I have them I can lead them to the elevator. There's one that only the Peacekeepers use and if I can get them on the top floor within the span of five minutes, that'll work. Then the only problem would be getting outside with everyone else."

That sounds so simple, yet I know it couldn't possibly be. Neither of us can seem to decide if this should be done. I want them out, but I don't know if this plan would work. Under the length of fifteen minutes? All the things that could go wrong run through my head. "Can you discuss this with your.. leader? Do you have someone to report to?" _Is her name Violet?_

"I have Boggs. It's him who talks with President Coin or all the other people." Peeta pauses. "He was on your escort today."

Immediately I know who. "The big muscly one?"

"See, I thought that one was me," Peeta says.

I repress a sort of sigh and smile. "The one with gray hair, right?" I press.

"Yeah, that's Boggs. I thought he was sort of a hard head since he's Coin's right hand man, but he's gotten better," Peeta tells me.

I note the change of his tone. "You don't like Coin?"

"She's not my favorite president."

"I don't think I like presidents at all. Any of them," I say.

"Maybe we should be presidents," Peeta jokes. "I think we'd do pretty good. At least I know we won't butcher it as much as the other ones have."

I imagine that for a moment, entertaining the tease. Then I shake my head. "None of the citizens would like me and they'd all love you," I accuse, knowing it's true. I'm finished washing so I reach for the silver knob to turn the water off, but I hesitate. We have at least seven minutes left.

"I don't think so," says Peeta. "Just look at right now. They all love you way more than me. And it's not like I can blame them." I'm used to the guilt I feel when he says those sort of things. The things that hint at his undying love for me. But the guilt I feel is so small I almost don't notice it. Maybe it's more due to the fact that what he says is true, than anything that has to do with love.

I'm at the door of the shower, accepting a towel he hands me as he turns away. I dry my hair and face and body quickly, discarding the fabric into the hamper before I pull on the cotton garments quickly. In the silence that follows, it gives my head time to clear itself. I recall all of today. The love of the citizens washing over me, their words, their gifts. Before that, my discussion with President Snow. The new plan. I turn to Peeta with a new direction of thought.

"President Snow is worried."

"About what?" Peeta's face is serious as he overlooks mine. "Does he suspect that we're here?"

"No, not this. I think he's worried how the new propos are making me feel. He's already come to talk to me–"

Peeta moves to me at that, pulling me by the hand, closer to him. "What did he say to you? What did he do?" he demands.

"Nothing.." I stumble out the word, surprised by the intensity. Worried that if I tell Peeta about the naked vulnerable ambush that happened today he'd grow too upset to control. "He hasn't done anything to me... he only told me how life is going to be after the rebellion ends."

"_If_ the Capitol wins."

"Yes," I say. "If."

"What will it be like?"

"Horrible. When I was making my conditions I made one of them be that he promises the victors immunity. Only he makes it so we're prisoners to the Capitol, bound to live here.. and our children, all of them will be given away to the Capitol, too. That way they won't ever get reaped." The last sentence comes out bitter and sarcastic because really the options of losing your child to the reaping or to strangers is practically the same. Either way they come back broken, if not back at all.

"I won't let him do that," Peeta says. He places a hand across the span of my abdomen. "This is our little girl, he won't take her away, I promise."

I rebuke at his words. "Little girl?"

"Well," Peeta deliberates. The expression of insult and anger and determination fades from his face, to be replaced with one that looks equal parts guilty and mistaken, as if he'd let those words slip out without being edited. "I'm just hoping, you know?"

"Hoping for what?"

"It's going to be just like you, isn't it?" Peeta sighs in response. Is that disdain I hear in his voice? His hand drops away from my abdomen as he leans heavily into the wall behind him. There is a feeble smile on his lips. "As stubborn as a mule," he says. "Fierce. And I even bet she'll have your scowl– there that one!"

I try to wipe the scowl from my face. I don't know what brings it on, the tone of his voice, the way he looks down tenderly at me, or the words he's speaking. Between my chariness at this topic, it occurs to me I've never once thought of the child as something other than 'it' or that is could possess either mine or his qualities. I haven't even thought of it as a person since the middle of the Quarter Quell, at which time I hadn't known I was pregnant, nor did I consider it as anything more than Peeta's child. "How do you even know what 'she' will be like? What if it's not a she?"

"I don't know," Peeta confesses. "Do you think she'll look like you?"

"Maybe," I relent. I look nothing like my mother. "What if I want it to look like you?" I ask primly, narrowing my eyes.

"Why?" he retorts. "I'm boring. Blonde with blue eyes. Typical town traits, nothing like you."

He thinks he's average? Peeta? With the dramatic blue eyes? I'm so stunned by anyone assuming such a thing that I let an actual desire of mine slip out without it sounding either critical or off-handed. "I want it to have _your_ eyes," I say, then clamp a hand over my mouth, before it could betray me further.

"We can't even agree on this," Peeta laughs. "You know what, I'll make you a bet. If she has grey eyes, I get to name her. If she has blue eyes, you can."

"Name her?" I ask, shocked twice in this conversation. How does he think about all this stuff? So far ahead, too far away to be certain. "I can't even.. you can't just. That's not right," I snap.

"What isn't?"

"Betting on its name?" I say, suddenly upset. "We're not.." I throw up a frustrated hand. Why are we even talking about this? "Really, that's not how it should be."

"How should it be, Katniss?" Peeta asks carefully.

"I don't know!"

"Then why can't we do this?"

"Because that's not what good parents do!" This time I turn my face away when I realize how my words have betrayed my insecurities about this sort of subject. Peeta waits several moments for me to continue. In that time I find that the place of my concussion aches dully and I press a hand into it. Slowly, Peeta reaches out for this hand and when I turn to look at him the smile on his face is fragile. Hurt. "Look," he says softly. "I know I haven't been around for a long time... and that maybe I don't have the privilege..."

No, that's not it. "You can name it," I tell him. I don't want him thinking that. I know there's a reason we've been apart. I don't blame him for the separation. The lack of his participation in this pregnancy isn't something I'm going to punish him for.

Peeta frowns. "It?"

"The baby," I correct myself.

"Our baby," says Peeta.

"Yeah."

Now he just looks frustrated, eyebrows furrowed. "Do you really want this baby, Katniss?" he whispers. "I just.. I need to know. Is there anything you're upset at me for? Things that I need to apologize for?"

I scowl. I thought I made all of this clear yesterday. Obviously not if he's asking me these things. I want to snap at him, but I hold my tongue. Trying to reflect off of my new lying skills, about the part of controlling my replies. "I don't not want it," I tell Peeta.

That isn't what he wanted to hear. I can never tell him what he needs to hear. Peeta drops my hand and pulls away from me. For a moment I remember not having him. The past six months without him, missing him. Already I'm taking advantage of the fact that he's back. "Wait," I say. The thought of not seeing him again still makes me want to fall to pieces... so I know that my irritation isn't anything. I'm not angry at him, not really. "It's just.." I try to explain. Outside I can hear the Peacekeepers above the sound of the running shower and I know I have little time left. "I'm not used to.. talking about it.. I mean, our baby. Her. And I don't think.. I'm worried.." _How do we know if we're doing it right? What if we make a mistake? We're not cut out for being parents, are we?_

Peeta opens his mouth, I stop him with a raised hand. Then I lift a finger to ask for a minute.

He waits patiently while I let my thoughts roll. How do I explain this? "You know how you said that you couldn't stand the thought of losing me? Before the Quarter Quell?" I ask him.

Peeta nods.

"Well that's.. basically the same thing. Except for thi–our baby. I thought if I could not think about it. _Her_. That if I just pretended, or acted indifferent, maybe it wouldn't matter so much if we both died here. And I guess.. well I'm not just.. I can't.." Peeta saves me from the rest, with a light, dappled smile appearing on his face.

"I understand."

"Good," I say, sighing. I don't think he does all that much but I'm glad he'll pretend for the mean time.

For several long minutes we stand and I move back into the shower to turn off the water. When I step back out Peeta is his usual optimistic and joking self again. "A kiss before you go?" he asks.

"Okay," I say. I step into him, expecting the taste of him, allowing myself to relax.

Unlike yesterday, where most of the kisses were excessive ones, these are less in multitude and more in depth. Dipping into the kinds of kisses that Peeta had taught me before the Quarter Quell. Peeta's tongue is hot and wet against mine. Momentarily, his teeth press into my bottom lip, leaving soft indents behind. Awakening a long forgotten, and stunningly missed hunger inside the pit of my stomach.

I hadn't even thought of these things in my past few months of unhappiness. The fact that Peeta finds me attractive, even this pregnant, even looking so unlike myself, is gratifying. And the fact that even Peeta looks different makes me wonder just how _changed_ we are inwardly, too, since the last time we shared these kinds of moments. The kinds of moments where I can feel myself growing more in need, in want, the greed very selfishly there in the back of everything my mind should be on.

Without my permission my hand runs up from his chest to trace the edges of his collar bones, his shirt buttons already somehow, mysterious undone. Unconsciously I lean more into him, causing Peeta to lean more heavily into the wall. I close my eyes, reveling in this moment. Until Peeta pulls away, laughing lightly, the sound shaking. "Wow. When I said kiss," he begins to say, but only an impatient noise, an embarrassing sort of mewl escapes my throat and I take Peeta by the back of the head and bring him back to my mouth.

Instantly, I think Peeta caves into both mine and his wants. The restraint he forced himself to hold has turned into mist, the steam of the shower's hot water against the chilling concrete floor making my skin feel sticky against his, as his hands slip underneath the back of my shirt, running up and down the length of my torso.

"Katniss," Peeta says, groans, the word damp against my cheek. My lips trail sloppily down his face, to his jaw, and my own hands are gripping the waistband of his uniform pants as if they are the only thing holding me to the floor.

"Later," I tell Peeta. Lips finding a place on his neck I find acceptable. Peeta tastes of salt and sweat and some sort of sweetness that must have to do with his body wash. Like fruit. I'm not good at this act, the neck thing, but I love it when he does it to me so I'm giving it a go. Licking, sucking, the white tips of my teeth gliding along the teased and raw skin as Peeta twists into me, trying in vain to be closer.

Somehow it surprises me the pleasure I can find in such easy and simple acts such as kissing him or hearing him say my name. If happiness is so easily found, why do I feel unhappy all the time? "Katniss," Peeta says for the fifth time, this time less moan and more levelheaded. "They've knocked three times."

Did they? "Oh," I say. Still I kiss him. Peeta has trouble stopping, too. I wonder if he's been having the worst half year of his life in the past six months of war as I have. My thoughts wander from there to remember the other night, after our first talk.. the propo I'd seen him in. The way he said he'd been fighting in the mean time. Does that mean unhappily fighting? My attention problems are showing. "Do you have my mockingjay pin?" I ask him, when it is his lips traveling to the soft skin of my throat, tracing down the length, over the pulse point hammering at the joint of my neck and shoulder.

"I do," he says. "Enorbaria tore it off of your shirt when she grabbed you. I reached the cliff after the snakes and was able to find it.." _just not you, _I can hear, unsaid. After that it seems his kisses are stronger. Unwilling to let go. "You feel so good," he breathes into my mouth, turning his head to accompany the angle of mine, and his hands that stayed well at my back suddenly become a little stronger. His fingers span out over my skin, each digit burning its presence into my flesh, and his elbows bend, pulling me tighter against him. One of his legs is suddenly between mine, the other wrapping around my left.

My knees are unusually weak, buckling beneath me as Peeta's knee adds pressure to my center. Thankfully Peeta has most of my weight on him, so I merely slip further into his grasp, eyes opening in my shock. Heat has already risen inside me, from lower abdomen to cheeks to my upper back except it seems to swell and pulsate with this new action. Those words are enough to make me feel uneasy, though. They are unfamiliar if not recuperated, and I feel something warning me somewhere inside me, that this isn't good. Except, I don't want to let go, either. This feeling disconcerts me even more.

One half of me thinks that I shouldn't be so whimsical. I shouldn't cling to him. I am a brick wall; the support, not the one in need. The other, completely different part of me, the fire inside me, begging for the fuel, leans into his legs, returns his kisses, loves the way Peeta looks with his eyes closed, cheeks properly flushed, curls as dark as pitch tickling me just underneath the ear lobe as his lips drop to my shoulder and trail kisses from one side to the other.

"Tell me to stop," he whispers into the constellation of freckles that dance down the length of my bicep. The hot breath rushing over hot skin as one of my rebellious hands untucks his shirt and runs along the hard muscles of his stomach. Traces the familiar map I once learned, that seems too long since last visited.

I don't say anything.

Peeta's mouth moves from arm to chest, one of his hands tugging at the collar of my shirt. "I mean it," he says. "You have to.. I can't. I want.."

"Then don't stop," I say, suddenly at a conclusion. The two parts of me that were in conflict have suddenly made sense. Feeling and instincts finally coming together in a way that makes sense. I do need Peeta. If it weren't for him, all those years ago with that burnt bread, I would have fulfilled something Snow regrets a very long time ago. I would be dead as a child. Starved. But I don't need Peeta because I love him. I love Gale, too, and I know I can get on without him. If these past six months have taught me anything it is that I need Peeta because without him I won't get on. I can't survive. It seems heartless of me that I don't choose who I want because of the love or feelings I have or because he's the man I'd have a child with, but merely because it is a survival mechanism. I can't live without Peeta because I wouldn't survive without him.

But that's who I am. A survivor.

Before either of us lose a article of clothing and Peeta's lips drop too far, I attempt to untangle myself from Peeta. If only to have enough room to lift my face to his. Only he stares right back at me with bright eyes and a sheepish smile. My stomach does an uncomfortable flip. To lower my eyes, to distracted myself, there is a pink mark on the side of his neck that I press a finger into as I say, breathe, barely whisper, "I love you."

The shock in his face is enough to be comical and to wound me at the same time. Then the sound of the door knob rattling causes me to turn from him and hurry away. The two steps I bound to the door gives me enough time to right my shirt and force myself to smile at the Peacekeeper who opens the door to peer down at me, equal parts suspicious and impatient.

Throughout the whole walk I take back to my room, Peeta doesn't make one word or sound or glance, despite the amount of times I peek at him. I had hoped for a different reaction. He did, after all, know before. Didn't he? All night I lie awake, wondering what tomorrow will bring, asking myself that same thing.


	9. Chapter Nine

_**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

_A/N: **Thank you **to everyone who replied very nicely to that rant I posted yesterday. I loved hearing from all of you that support this story and so here's the next chapter. I'm hoping for the next chapter to be posted within today! Thank you all so much for reading. To those who dislike it, don't read it. As for those who advised me not to grow upset next time, I promise I won't. Sorry for typos. Reviews make my day brighter. -Taryn(:_

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Chapter Nine

The second I stumble into the shower room, Peeta closes the door and reaches for the hem of my shirt. I don't know why but it seems he's just a presences of beauty, and I'm wowed by his mystic. The aura of yellow light that radiates from his golden tanned skin as he pulls me by the waist against him, kissing my neck, sucking, hard, pointed white teeth sinking into the skin of my shoulder.

"I want," he says. "Katniss.. I need.."

I only nod, feeling a strange, overwhelming excitement in my belly. Somehow we make it to the shower, staggering our way toward it, one piece of clothing stripped off after another until Peeta and I are in the steaming, warm shower, stark naked.

We kiss, passionately, the kiss of a man and a woman well used to each other. Peeta's hands massage the length of my stomach, tracing the sweet narrowing of my waist as it leads him to the womanly pieces of me at the top, cupping one breast in his hands as the other grasps me by the hip.

His finger works at the sensitive skin of my breast until it's been rubbed into a delicious rawness and his mouth moves from mine to my shoulders, spattering kisses downward until they're on the other breast, not in his hand. Kissing me, tongue hot and wet as he trails saliva from one bosom to the other.

Then we slide to the floor, and with a sigh of complete contentment, small puddles of hot water lapping at my back and hair, Peeta mounts me. At first just slipping on top, lowering me to the floor with the arm around my waist.. then drawing my legs apart with a careless knee.. kisses traveling, each touch of his lips, like a spark of fire to my skin, lower and lower.

When Peeta's big, square hands glide up the length of my inner thighs, a ache in my belly cries out with need. Somehow my mouth makes this noise, too. Peeta, eyes like icy blue fire, lifts his head to stare at me, steady, as his kisses drop from the lower curve of my belly to the softer, paler skin that surrounds my center.

I don't know what he's doing. I can't understand why my tongue won't work when I try to ask or to tell him maybe not. All I am is kneaded pounds of pleasured flesh as Peeta's hands massage the skin of my thighs, keeping them pried apart despite my wish to close them.

Suddenly, I'm withering into the concrete floor, strands of wet hair sticking to my face and lips and shoulders, feeling pleasure I have never felt before. The muscles in my stomach contract at random moments as the stimulus rolls over me and I lurch upward, only to fall back to the floor, the aching urgent warmth in my lower abdomen only growing in its want and need. Never to be satisfied.

Peeta kisses my center just as heatedly as my mouth, somehow his tongue is hotter, faster, darting back and forth and laying flat against every right piece. I've never seen this kind of loving, never heard of it, not truly, and I don't know where Peeta got the idea, but I am melting against him because of it, a puddle of good feelings.

Until... he stops. Peeta rises from the floor abruptly, grabbing me effortlessly in his arms, wrapping his forearms around my backside and thighs, fingers grasping and digging into my flesh as he backs me up into a concrete wall. There is a new intensity in the back of his eyes. And somehow this loving, it's not as tender or heartfelt as his love usually is, but it's a nice difference, a welcome change.

Peeta is hard against my center, hovering over. I wrap my legs around his waist, leaning heavily into my left shoulder to spare my spine pain. Only Peeta waits, teasing me. Rocking against me, but not entering, kissing my mouth and jaw and chest, but despite all the rocking I do on my part, he isn't.. he just can't.. why.. I ache so much for him.. I want... I need..

"Katniss," Peeta whispers into my neck. "Katniss!" He repeats at the shell of my ear, more urgent.

I'm frustrated with him, belly aching, center wet and panging, so much that I whimper at him, fingernails digging into his shoulder as hard as they can. The other hand running harshly through his head of blonde curls as our stomachs lay flat against each others, sticky with steam and dripping beads of water, unbearably close.

_Blonde? _I suddenly think. _A flat stomach?_

"Katniss! Wake up!"

With a jolt of my eyelids, fighting off the cloudy image of Peeta and I in the showers, I find myself laying out in the hospital cot, blankets tangled in my legs, short hair sticking to the back of my neck with a hot sweat as Leon stands over me.

Instantly my chest is flooded with a strange, odd sadness because none of it was real. Even as I sit up, ignoring Peacekeeper Leon's scolding for sleeping in, I feel a unusual slipperiness in my center that makes my cheeks flame.

"Okay," I snap at Leon, who is still talking at me, "I'm up!"

"Good," says Leon. "The prep team is waiting."

Throughout breakfast and my transformation from Katniss Everdeen into the Capitol's Mockingjay, I find my mind wandering far too much back to this morning's dream. I try to understand what triggered it. Maybe it was all the reawakened pleasures by Peeta's kissing last night. That would be a good explanation, but I still find some embarrassment because of the dream. Though, not as much as I feel for those last words I muttered to Peeta before I was forced to depart.

What is he thinking? Did he dream last night? Is he upset or too happy for words or just shocked.. maybe untrusting? I don't know the answer, not until I see him tonight. So once again this coming day won't pass by soon enough. Even when the prep team finishes early, promising maybe a quicker day, I know this isn't an omen to count on.

I pace back and forth at the front doors of the mansion while we wait for my camera crew and Plutarch. Constantly I peek at Peacekeeper Leon who stands stationary at the door, green eyes flickering to my clanking footsteps with much disapproval. And when I'm not looking at him I'm measuring up the six Peacekeepers on my escort today. None of them I recognize, but that doesn't mean they can't be rebels. I've learned quickly, even from the far beginning of my Hunger Games career, that no one is what they first appear, not Cinna, not Leon, not even Peeta.

The first four hours I spend outside in the autumn morning is frigid. There are less people because fall has begun to drag its heavy fingers across the land, turning the sky into a turmoil of gray and the chilly air biting ripely into the flesh the moment you step outside. One of the Peacekeepers in my escort shrugs out of his jacket and throws it over me after the first two hours and my lips have turned blue, because this Mockingjay suit is hopelessly thin.

I study this Peacekeeper throughout the rest of the hours until lunch because of his act of kindness. Turns out that he's not a he, but it's a woman with short brown hair and caramel skin with beautiful wide, brown eyes that reminds me a bit of Rue's. Every time she notices my regard for her she just turns away, uncaring, and the moment we are back at the mansion for lunch she snatches her coat back and disappears among the hassle it is for me to get from the front of the mansion to the dining hall.

Lunch is better because I can start to feel my toes and fingers again. I drink much of the punch, finding the tart taste just what I'm craving today. While the others talk around and above me, I stare down into the blood red liquid, swirling it around my cup, my mind snagged on the image of Mayor Undersee's puddle of punch underneath his mutilated body. Or Rue and Cato and.. suddenly I push away my drink.

"Miss Everdeen, you look so lovely today," says a man I don't know across me.

He's been watching me, I realize when his eyes flick from my drink to my face. I still my features, composing myself easily. One piece fitting in place next to another. I smile. "Thanks to Snow."

"Oh, I don't think you could attribute your natural beauty to him." My throat chokes up a bit as the man's eyes trace over my face, then lower, then back up again. Honestly, he doesn't look like an _awful_ man. But he's Capitol. So he's awful anyway. "How rude of me!" he exclaims when I have come up answer-less. The man who couldn't be more than thirty, leans across the extravagant table of foods and offers me his pale hand. His smile is surprising kind and touching and his eyes are two blue chips of ice, that seem to melt into two pools of invite. "My name is Frier March."

"March? I've never heard that name before," I comment, shaking his hand. The only thing I could think of. An honest thing because usually the names of the Capitol were hard to pronounce, aside Snow, and they've never been named after months.

"Funny that you asked," Frier says, sitting back down and pushing the silver blonde strands of hair from his face. It occurs to me that he has nothing odd about him. Completely a hundred percent normal. "It's a family name of mine that my great-great-grandfather earned us." The man smiles again. "You see," his voice has dropped significantly, as if he's sharing a secret, "I'm the great-great-grandson of The Victor."

"Who?" I ask.

"The Victor!" Frier emphasizes. "You know, Grier, from District Ten. The victor of the First Hunger Games?"

"The first victory of the Hunger Games was from District Ten?" I ask.

"Well, where else?" Frier taps a butter knife that sits next to the butter dish and sends me glances between that and his other finger that taps his throat. "District Ten is livestock, they butcher animals all the time. My great-great-grandfather had been slaughtering pigs and cows and bulls for all his fifteen years before he was reaped. If any tributes in that arena was going to win, since the Career districts were yet to be established, it was District Ten."

Of all the things my useless school taught me of the Hunger Games I find it suddenly obvious that I've never known any of this. We learn about the origin of the Games but we never got the full turn out of the first handful of them. The one I can remember off the top of my head and that is the earliest back, it would possibly only be the fiftieth, Haymitch's year. Then I remember what this man said before the history lesson. "You're related to The Victor?"

"Yep. I'm the direct line downward, from son to son. I have a sister, but," he leans close again, this time putting a hand up to his mouth, "between you and me, she's a bit snobbish. She wouldn't even come to meet you with me!"

"Oh, I'm sure she'll come sometime," I say, not knowing what else to. I'm still caught up in what Frier is telling me. "You mean.. you live in the Capitol? And you paid to be here.. with your own money?"

Frier looks a little surprised by my own perplex. "Yes."

"But your parents were from District Ten?"

"No, no. My great-great-grandfather was from District Ten. Once he moved to the Capitol from the Victor's Village in District Ten he earned his last name, because you know, people in District Ten don't have last names. He chose March because that was the month that he met my great-great-grandmother." Frier looks at me oddly. "You don't know any of this?"

"No," I tell him. "But I find it interesting."

"I would love to tell you the rest," Frier says, but just as he opens his mouth to do so, I feel a hand touch my shoulder and a shadow falls across the white top of the table. I know by the overwhelming waft of blood and roses that it's President Snow, without needing to turn my head.

"I see you've met Mr. March, Katniss," Snow says. When I do look at Snow I see him smiling formidably at the man across the table from me, and Frier smiles brightly right back at the hateful man, as if Snow wasn't some impending force of oppression and foulness.

"I was just telling her about the past. Boring the poor girl with my tales. I think I saw her sigh in relief when you came to rescue her. Poor dear was pretending to be so intrigued," Frier says, then smiles at me, with a new light of appreciation.

I stiffen at the sound of Snow's reply. "Yes, I think she could do without more stories in her head to distract her." Snow nods to the escort Peacekeepers waiting at the door, then addresses the whole table. "This was a nice lunch, I hope to see you all again," his eyes drop to me, expectant.

I thank them, and many of them have laughter in their eyes at the awkward way I stand and walk across the room, President Snow shadowing my every step. When I see Peacekeeper Leon hurrying to our side to take me by the upper arm and away from Snow, it is then that I notice how angry the President looks.

"Don't let her out of your sight," Snow snarls at Leon, black eyes ebony sparks, and then the President turns his back and disappears once again into the dining hall. I stare after him.

"What.. what did I do?" I ask when Leon begins to drag me down the hall, back toward the front door.

"Have you ever seen it Snow in March?" Leon answers my question with a question and I am only more confused.

The time for getting a real answer though, is very short because quickly I am back outside, the cold air sinking into my limbs. I have the same group of six Peacekeeper escorts, except this time, instead of standing at the mansion gate as I walk around the President's house, Leon is tagging along. He is at my side all throughout the walk, staring at me as I greet the citizens that are bundled in fur jackets or dead animal scarfs wrapped around their jowls.

When I begin to shudder and shiver it's Leon this time who pulls off his jacket and wraps it around my shoulders. I clutch it with my hands for the rest of the day, prepared not to give anymore hand shakes or hugs. Truthfully it can't be that cold, but the wind is blowing hard, the clouds blocking out the warmth of the sunlight, and the Capitol's Mockingjay suit is purely for show, not protection. The Peacekeeper jacket on the other hand is reflecting warmth from the inner layer of the fabric, kind of like the jacket I had in my first Hunger Games, but it's white.

The only citizen I can remember this day is a teenager. He is about my age, with ginger hair, dappled with lime, the hair teased and curled to make up for his rather short height. When he steps up to me, he is unsmiling, the fur gloves on his hands radiating warmth when he places one onto my shoulder. Then, before I can move or my escorts move, the boy kisses me; a cold lipped, chaste touch of lips, before he flees the scene, laughing and hooting at the group of boys that I had not noticed before, as they all run off with him. Leon is muttering under his breath about it for the next hour.

The kiss however repulsive, though innocent and strange considering I don't know any normal teenage boys who would kiss a stranger–celebrity or not–pregnant woman, makes me think of Peeta. I can't deny my flash of white hot temper the moment after it happened, I had taken a step as if to pursue him. What would I do with him after I catch him? I had no idea. Only I accepted it soon after, scowling.. until Leon ordered me to stop scowling, because otherwise I would be shocked. Now, I think of Peeta because I suddenly remember before lunch and my history lesson, I had that dream.

Just thinking about the dream makes me a few degrees warmer. A little more impatient for this day of filming to end. Nerves two notches thinner, wondering what Peeta will say or do once he sees me. Would he kiss me? Confess he was only shocked yesterday, not anything else, that is what enabled him from reacting properly. What would reacting properly entitle? What do I want Peeta to do? I push away the question because I don't know what I should want or what he wants or what we should really actually be doing concerning the war and my escape, two much more important things to consider.

With that in mind I begin to greet each new citizen much more enthusiastically. Or, at least, as enthusiastic as Katniss Everdeen as the Capitol's Mockingjay, can really be. A kind woman, who is also pregnant, and she says she'll have her baby girl any day, she gives me a pair of gloves that I pull on without even thinking it over. They're not fur-lined, but warm enough. Leon actually talks to the next citizen who steps up to me; a tall man with a willowy shape and a long, solemn face. When I smile at this man, he just looks me over critically and turns to Leon, who jumps forward to shake the man's hand.

Once the man leaves, as straight faced as he came, I turn to Leon. "Who was that?"

"Head Gamemaker Cornelius," says Leon. "He retired about ten years ago. The last Hunger Games that he planned was the one where the kids were on a coral reef out in the middle of the sea. I think most of them died by jellyfish stings or shark mutt bites than anything else."

I don't understand half the words he says, but still it makes me shudder.

Finally dinner comes around, and I can't help but notice the multiple glances President Snow gives me from his place at the head of the table. I eat quietly, noting with a twinge of disappointment that Frier March is no where in sight.

The same nerves as yesterday start to sink into my skin on the elevator ride that Leon and I take to the underground hospital floor. Instead of fidgeting, I start to gnaw at the inside of my cheek. Except, just as the elevator opens and I take a step out, I stall in my tracks.

"Miss Everdeen. Leon." Head Peacekeeper Brock nods at both of us. The man stands in front of us, arms crossed over broad chest, cruel eyes shining as he blocks our way toward my room. He smiles at Leon. "I think I'll take her from here, Avox."

Leon's face sneers at the nickname. "I haven't been given any orders. She's not suppose to be out of my sight."

"As if that makes any difference," Brock says. He flings out a hand, palm upward. "Hand her over."

I feel a flare of indignation at being treated like an object, to be handed from one person to the next, treated as if I'm not even there, hearing them. I scowl at the hand, but even though I want t speak out, I know I won't. I can feel a fear nursed inside me, remembering Mayor Undersee. Worried suddenly why I'm being given to Head Peacekeeper Brock. _How am I suppose to see Peeta this way? What will this do to the rescue mission in two days?_

Resignedly, lips pressed into a thin line, Leon nods. Without further ado, just like that, I'm not safe anymore. I shoot an angry, panicked look at Leon when Head Peacekeeper Brock steps forward and pushes me back into the elevator. Leon only lowers his head as the elevator doors close again.

Already I know I've done something wrong. I have no idea what it was, but I must contribute it to lunch. I did something at lunch that greatly upset President Snow. Do I say sorry? Will that work?

I turn to Brock. "Where am I going?"

"You'll see."

"Why?" I say, slip out, my voice breaking. I'm an inch away from grasping him by the jacket and begging. I can see Mayor Undersee smiling at me in the shadows of the elevator. I can hear his animalistic, thrashing screams in my head. I remember the weeping Madge, the shaking and shuddering Johanna. Cinna's bloody, oozing face.

"Have you ever seen it Snow in March?" Head Peacekeeper Brock retorts, then the elevator opens, before I can compose my confused face, and he takes a fistful of my hair, dragging me into the terrifyingly white hallway.

I try to keep up, awkwardly bent and pulled along, as I wince, Brock's fingers not gentle in any way. My eyes start to stream because of the pinching and twisting of my hair, but before that gets to be a problem we reach the end of a hallway and the door opens and Head Peacekeeper Brock throws me unceremoniously inside. Thankfully, I'm caught by someone's arms, before I could fall and endanger the baby.

I turn around to see Brock before the door closes and he is glowering at me. "Snow wants to make sure you remember why you've made the deal with him." _He's still worried. _"And I have too many prisoners on hand." He pauses, lips down turned. "I'll come back for you once we're ready." Then he is gone.

"Katniss?"

I pull away from the chest pressed against my back to see it's Madge. I'm appalled at the sight of her. Without thinking about it I raise a hand and touch her, watching her wince when my fingers come in contact to her brutalized face, the shaved span of her scalp.. the Capitol seal, burned into her cheek, as my fingers glide over it, tragically. Once beautiful, blonde haired and blue eyed Madge Undersee, orphaned and branded like cattle, beaten to ugliness over the past six months of war.

"Oh, odds."

"Don't worry about me," says Madge, pushing away my hands. Her eyes are wide and concerned and disbelieving. "They told me you died."

"How?"

"I don't.." she grows confused. Presses a frail hand to her temple. It's then that I realize she's so skinny that the struggle it must have been to catch me when Head Peacekeeper Brock threw me must have been a great feat for her. I help her to a bench, after glancing quickly around to realize it's only me and her.

"It's okay," I tell her and I pull her into my chest, remembering what she'd done for me the moment I had returned to the cell. "I'm here. Alive."

Eventually she stops shaking and leans heavily into me. I sit there, feeling slightly numb, not believing I'm actually back here. Feeling disgust toward the Capitol seal that spans across the front of my Mockingjay suit, that matches the symbol across Madge's pale cheek. Pained to know that Peeta will panic once he hears that I've gotten myself in trouble. Startled when Madge whispers, "Katniss.." Her voice is heartbreakingly sad, full of sorrow, mourning. "I haven't seen Johanna in a month. Not since you left. And Cinna was last here.. I don't remember how many, but days." Her voice cracks. "They just took the Avoxes before you arrived."

Johanna is dead? But no, that can't be it. They need her to use her against me. A memory sticks out at me suddenly, of the ceremony earlier this week. _A new form of torture. Hi-jacking. _What does it mean? I stroke Madge's nonexistent hair. "Johanna's alive.. somewhere. And Cinna..." my voice catches. "I don't know."

"Where have you been?" Madge implores, sitting up slightly, looking me in the face.

I try not to cringe every time I see her. "Trying to help."

"Trying?"

"Well I'm here now," I say, eyes traveling over the familiar bench-filled cell, "so I did something wrong." At first my thoughts are on the deal I made with Snow, the three weeks spent in training to be the Capitol's Mockingjay, then I remember the rescue mission and the rebel infiltration. I want to tell Madge, to give her hope, to let her know that somehow I'll save her if anything, but what if this place is bugged?

I lean into Madge, as if I mean only to hug her close, except my lips are at her ear, whispering softly, warm breath against her flesh as she grows more intrigued by every other word out of my mouth as the last. I can feel her grow tenser in excitement, the hands that she clutches my suit with, slowly relaxing their grip. When I pull away, Madge's blue eyes are wide with new emotions. Wordlessly, she flings her arms around my neck again, pulling me hard back to her and she, this time, whispers unheard words in my ear. "I knew they would find a way. I'm just glad they'll help me, too"

I breathe, "I wouldn't leave you behind." Though inside me I feel a piece of guilt, knowing I had left out the part that the rebels originally have not planned to save her and the others, but I know that if they don't leave, I won't either.

Madge laughs slightly, the sound sending a piece of ice straight through my heart because it sounds so much like Mayor Undersee's own laughter. Even though his was broken and insane and Madge's is joyous, relief filled, slightly carefree, it still is enough to make me fear this place again.

As I wait for the return of Head Peacekeeper Brock, I start to find good ways to view this situation. I get to see Madge again. Though she is in horrible shape, I get to give her hope. Already she is siting stronger and straighter. I can recognize the girl who used to sit with me day after day in school within this broken person now. The fight that makes Madge Undersee special glimmers in the back of her eyes. Proves that she is still standing among all the others who have died and passed through this cell.

"I'll be back," I tell her, when I can hear the heavy footsteps outside the cell.

"I'll be waiting."

I'm at the door in moments, waiting, determined to be good. Except when I turn back to face Madge, for a final goodbye, she lifts her chin and looks right back at me and I'm suddenly remembering Prim. My sweet little duckling piled in on my bed, back at the victor's house, peering up at me as she crawls to the edge of the blankets with the same pensive look in her blue eyes as Madge.

_"Will you promise me something?..."_

"_Of course."_

"_...I don't want you to change. If you can't come home knowing Peeta's dead, than don't come home because you think I need you. Just don't change, Katniss. Promise that."_

_"I promise."_

Before I can process the thought properly or connect it to my situation, Head Peacekeeper Brock reaches the cell, opens the door and grasps my roughly by the arm. Just before I lose myself to a panic, what I do have time to grasp, as I'm being dragged away, is Madge, humming faintly under her breath.


	10. Chapter Ten

_**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

_A/N: Undeniably important chapter. Hope you like it. Thanks for reading. Reviews are always nice. You may think "Ick, all this pointless death," but really, Darius and the Avox girl died importantly. Katniss won't forget this punishment any time soon. And the Marchs are a key into Snow's weak point. Without this sub-plot addition in this story, the next one would be hopelessly empty. (So yes, after they escape, the Marchs will slip from thought, in light of more important things.. but afterward, Katniss will find herself at a very sharp cross-point considering the Marchs, Snows, and her good and bad.) -Taryn(:_

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Chapter Ten

Disappointment slips through me like a stone into a deep lake when we step into the same interrogation room as a month ago. Even though Head Peacekeeper Brock had left me with Madge briefly so that he could prepare everything for my arrival, since I got the peculiar feeling this was an order that had been given out of nowhere, I still get a good look at the session that I'm interrupting.

Brock was obviously busy with Johanna beforehand, because on my walk down the door-less white hallway, I got to see her. Clawing at the four Peacekeepers who all put forth great efforts to control the young woman, who in turn just throws herself at them, wriggling, hands randomly flying out to run along the walls, leaving behind bloody streaks. When she saw me pass them by, she threw herself against the arms and hands restraining her and cried out wildly, pupils huge. One bloody hand just whisking passed my face.

I stood stalk still, unbelieving as they continued to drag the deranged woman away from me. Brock chuckled under his breath, and grabbed me by the arm again.

Now, I stumble into the mess that Johanna has left behind. All across the room are discarded syringes. The last time I was here there was a lifted table in the middle of everything, the table is still there, but it's been flattened out, and above it a television has been installed onto the ceiling. I can't make sense of the mess. However, I note two other people in the room, who glance up at Brock and I as we enter and they smile slightly, both of them bent over the table, scrubbing away the streaks of blood that splatter and drip from the leather restraints

"She struggled too much," the male one says. His voice like the quick jolt of a pen, yet intelligent. With a toss of a bloody rag into a bucket at the corner of the room, the man straightens himself, and he's wearing a uniform that resembles more of what the doctors wear than any Peacekeeper. The woman is dressed in the same outfit; both of them short in stature, possessing greasy black hair and though her eyes are mute green and his are a beady black, they seem very similar in the way they move. Twitchy, like bugs or nervous prey.

Head Peacekeeper Brock has already lost interest in them and the mess. He moves to the one-way mirror that separates this small white room from another. Slowly, eyes flickering back and forth between the strange man and woman who blink back at me, smiling, I approach Brock's side when he motions me there.

"Look at this," he orders.

I do. And I feel the interior of my stomach melt away with the guilt that bubbles there.

The first face I take in is covered with a dripping sheen of sweat. Bangs of fiery red hang over her eyes as she stares at me. Unbidden sadness deep in their irises, buried into the pink, puckered folds of crisscrossed scars that run back and forth, cheek to cheek along her face. Her lips look off, until I realize they've been sheered at, a bright bloom of red through each shredded crack as she opens her mouth to draw in a shaking breath. And all I can do is feel the indescribable need to sink to my knees and curl into a ball. The Avox girl stares at me, as if she can see me. Can she? This is a one-way mirror and I'm on the side that sees through it, so it must be her, just staring at her own reflection. Noting her grotesque appearance, that defeated tilt of her shoulders as she's forced to stand there, a Peacekeeper locking her arms behind her back.

The same thing is being done to the person beside her. In him there is only hopelessness. More than defeat. He's gone already. The man has given up on his life. Has broken himself and handed the pieces over to Head Peacekeeper Brock. I can't see his face, only the stooped sight of his yellow and purple scalp, a fine layer of thin red hair masking it.

"Don't hurt them," I find myself saying, _not anymore than you already have. _"I'll.. I'll do anything."

"It's too late for that."

I turn to Brock, eyes reverent. "_Please_." I don't beg. Never. But this, I can't stand by and watch as he kills Darius and this woman. I can't. I won't. _It just might break me, change me. _I promised Prim I wouldn't change. I keep my promises to Prim.

The man strikes me across the face so fast that I'm breathless, nearly falling to my knees, a hand flying out to grasp the window to keep myself standing, as my other hand grasps my throbbing cheek. _He hit me. _He's not allowed to hit me. I thought he wasn't allowed to hurt my face, the image, the bruise will show. _He hit me._

"Tick," Brock barks above me. The greasy haired man steps to our side. "Tie her."

"A pleasure."

I don't struggle with Tick as he drags me to the table that Johanna's blood still stains. By the time I'm strapped in and it has been lifted to a partially standing position, I see that Head Peacekeeper Brock has transferred from this room to the next one. He stands in front of Darius, turning his head from side to side as if he's overlooking a piece of meat he might purchase.

The woman comes to stand at my side and she smiles at me, as if we're about to do something fun together. She reaches for my stomach, and I throw myself instinctively upward, one hand jerking against the leather straps to slap away her hand. "Oh, sweetheart," the woman says. "Don't worry none. You're safe with me."

I don't trust her words one bit.

My cheek still throbs by the time Brock reenters the room, dragging Darius behind him. "I don't think I need to introduce you two, do I?" asks Brock as he dumps Darius on the floor some yards in front of me.

I say nothing as Darius slowly lifts his head to see to what Brock is referring to. He starts at the sight of me, then his eyes cool, staring at me in an indifferent way. As if even the shock of seeing an old face can't mean anything to him anymore.

"I'm sorry," I rush out, when Brock has gone behind my back, digging through something. The woman at my side reacts to my burst and pinches me sharply on the arm. I twist away, but it's not too painful, not as painful as a fifty foot drop, into cold, surprisingly solid water. "Please, I didn't ever think this would happen. I'm sorry. I trie–"

"Gag her, Vix."

"Of course."

This time I struggle as the woman, Vix, ties a wad of abrasive cloth around my mouth. In the end I lose the fight as Vix and Tick work together to hold me still and shove more cotton into my cheeks. Darius stares at me the whole time, not lifting a finger, emotionless.

Gale blooms in the back of my mind when I think of the incident that brought Darius to the Capitol in the first place. I think of the way this man stood up for my best friend, his life put on the line, his career, his young and teasing spirit. _What happened to that man? Has all the torture really done this to him?_

Head Peacekeeper Brock in back in my line of sight. In his hand he has a syringe, that he holds at eye level and he pushes out all the remaining air within it. Has he gotten attached to drugs because of the new torture on Johanna? Darius begins to actually show emotions now that he can see a potential weapon in Brock's hand. Fear and panic gleam from his eyes as he makes strangled, gasping animal-like noises, crawling away from the man, sliding all over the floor.

That is until Tick runs forward and holds Darius still. I watch with my heart ready to burst as the needle finds it place into Darius' neck. There is no result at first, only that Darius glares up at Head Peacekeeper Brock, then I can start to see the nervous titter running like live-wired electricity underneath Darius' skin.

He can't hold still to save his life. Thrashing. Feet trying to scramble into the upward position. Hands flying out. I sink further against the cold metal table, hoping it'll envelope me. Vix, at my side, places a hand on my shoulder and her nails dig sharply into my back. "Eyes open, sweetheart."

Without doing much else to Darius, Tick drags him over to the wall on our left and uses restraints I had not noticed before to keep him there. They are two metal cuffs that are attached to the wall, somewhere just above Darius' head. Dangling slightly from these restraints, the energized, crazed Darius throws himself violently around. Afraid, I realize. Desperately scared. Hard pressed to breathe.

I turn my head from Darius long enough to note that the Avox girl is being pushed into a chair over in the next room. Head Peacekeeper Brock treats her with a strange sweetness, murmuring softly, his hands gentle as he sweeps her bangs from her eyes. Smile not as mocking as usual when he restrains her hand on a small table seated between them as he sits in a chair across her, his back to me. Only when Tick hurries to their side, a bag of knifes in hand, does the Avox girl begin to cry.

She makes these soft gurgling sounds, as if she's trying to beg. I can just hear her saying; _no, please, I'm sorry, I don't know her, I don't, she hates me, she let me get captured all those years ago, I don't know her. _She doesn't deserve this. Every time I try to turn my face away, shame and guilt in my throat threatening to choke me, Vix turns my face back upward and forward.

It is not as sudden or as barbaric as Mayor Undersee's death was. This one is impossibly slower. Brock talks to her throughout the whole thing, asking questions that she could not possibly answer. I thought maybe he meant to use the knifes to cut off her fingers, one by one... but instead he uses these small, flat blades and shoves them harshly underneath her fingernails. One nail after another he goes as her answers are only the grunting, useless screams that are not enough to sedate Brock.

Once she's out of fingernails, he begins to twist the knifes, carving away the soft skin of his fingers. Then the fingers. Then her toes. Tick helps him severe a hand with a cleaver. It's then that I vomit over the side of the table, spattering Vix's shoes. The woman doesn't grow upset, merely pats my back and nods toward the scene in front of us, where her eyes have not left once.

Darius watches sometimes. He watches the Avox girl scream with so much twisted pain and emotion in his face I can't help but suspect he might have grown attached to his companion of imprisonment. Blood has started to drip from the cuffs around his wrist and bead down his arms, puddle on top of his scalp and shoulders, slipping across his cheeks, onto his clothes. He doesn't notice. Doesn't feel the metal biting straight through flesh, vein, grating against bone, no doubt, by that depth. Has the drugs taken away his ability to feel physical pain? What was it that they put inside him?

I think by the time the Avox girl is dead, I'm too exhausted to feel what I should. All I feel is disgust. Tick carries her lifeless, mutilated body away, as Brock mockingly kicks the remaining pieces of her on the floor.

The smell that enters the room with him is enough to make me gag. Covered in blood and smiling, white teeth gleaming in comparison to the crimson of his clothes and darkness of his skin, Brock reaches for me. I flinch away until Vix shushes me, stroking my hair, as if my mother. I snarl at her uselessly, as Brock pulls me roughly to resisting feet. They slip out from under me like butter. Even when Brock gives me a sharp shake, my legs are jelly, and then I see it coming. I cry out, reeling away, but that only makes it so the blow gets me flat in the face.

Brock curses profusely. He drops me, so that I sink to the floor. "I'm going to get hell for that. She's bleeding. Vix, _fix it."_

"How?"

"Clean her up, damn it!"

"What about.."

"Forget the Avox!" Brock roars at her and Vix shrinks away, terrified. "Fix the Mockingjay!"

Tick scuttles to my side, lowering himself into a crouch and reaching a hand out to me. I withdraw, arms wrapping themselves around my shoulders as I taste the rusted, coppery flavor of blood on my lip. Vix takes me under the armpits from behind and with her brother's help, they drag me toward the door.

My last glimpse of the room is Darius, hanging limply from the metal cuffs, his arms so covered in blood that his biceps and shoulders are both solid slabs of brick red. His once young and boyish face,_ bloodless. Lifeless. Dead._

The room that the two doctors take me to is not one I've seen before. It's slightly cluttered, full of different assortments of things, glass shelves lining the upper half of the walls, cabinets full of supplies. I watch numbly as the two of them gather things together. I don't react when Vix wipes at my face with a warm towel, after ungagging me. Tick is mixing together some salves, that eventually are slathered all over my lips and then my jaw. "This will sting for a few hours," he tells me, voice nervous and hands twitchy as he applies the medicine. "By the end of the week there won't be any trace of the contusions."

_Not good enough, _I think, knowing with a little satisfaction that Brock will get punished for his slip of hand and temper. Snow likes things to be unnoticeable to public eyes. Perfect on the outside, no matter what the inside says or actually does. I'll have bruises and swollen cuts by the morning and both of them know it.

"Watch her. I'm going to go see what we're suppose to do with her next," Tick says to Vix and then he slips from the room.

I stare after him for a long time, until I see Vix lean nervously into the counter on my right. Her face is a mask of uncertainty. I can note a slight tremor in her hands. Worried she'll be blamed, no doubt. Brock could blame Vix or Tick and come away free. _All of them are to be blamed for Darius and the Avox girl, _I think, suddenly no longer numb. Instead all I can feel is hate. Dreadful, blood poisoning _hate_.

I reach for the nearest glass cabinet on my left. I watch Vix, making sure she can't see me, but just as I pull aside the sliding glass, she turns her head to glare at me. "Those aren't for you," she says. She moves to rise, to pull me away, to do what? She can't hit me.

I smash the delicate plate of glass with a fist and hurriedly pick up a large shard by the time Vix has got a good hold of my upper arm. When I raise the weapon the woman's grip on me loosens and she throws her hands up. Slowly, she backs away.

"Look," she says, pleads. It's nice that they are the ones pleading now. Not me. "I- It wasn't me. I'm only following orders. You-You wouldn't hurt an fellow mother. I have three kids!" Vix's eyes flick around the room, looking for rescue.

"So?" I say. "Just because we both have kids doesn't matter to me." _Just because I'm a mother it doesn't make me weak. _I step down from my seat on the stool and tighten the grip I have of the shard. It can't be longer than five inches, sharp enough to bite through flesh, at least. Not sharp enough to do what they did to the Avox girl, but I remember the scars. The crisscrossed ruin of her face.. Vix's face looks just as pale and thin as the Avox girl's.

When Vix opens her mouth, about to tell a lie, she makes a run for the door. I was expecting that, though, and I throw myself into her path, an elbow swiftly knocking her in the gut. Vix stumbles, and trips over a stool. She lands sprawled on the floor, green eyes wide. She begins to shout and scream, things like codes or numbers and names of Peacekeepers I don't recognize.

But just like the screams of Mayor Undersee and Darius and the Avox girl, no one hears them.

I'm just pinning her underneath my awkwardly pregnant weight when I hear the door knob rattling. Hurriedly I lower the shard of glass to press into the side of Vix's face, determined to get revenge.. until my eyes find Vix's. Their depths gleaming up at me for mercy. Begging me for another chance. The hands she clutches my thighs with, fingernails digging into flesh, keening for rescue, for some alternative.

Suddenly, I'm not seeing Vix, but I see myself, pinned underneath Clove. I'm hearing Cato's last agonizing minutes of life, where I was forced to send an arrow through his eye to give even _him_ mercy. Prim, making me promise not to change. The thought of Cinna or Madge or Peeta seeing me now, siting on top of this woman, slitting her throat with a barbaric piece of glass..

I'm a monster.

_They're monsters. _They deserve it. She stood back, patting my back as they cut that Avox girl apart piece by piece... allowed them to do whatever it was that they did to Johanna. Watched Brock brand Madge's pretty face for the Capitol. Let Brock and Tick kick and beat Cinna as the stylist withered on the floor.

My hand is shaking, fingers cramped around the whisper sharp edge, blood welling up in my fist as my muscles spaz; undecided. Part of me knows I should drop it. Another part only wants to slash it viciously across this woman's face. Make her hurt, like I have. Like everyone has.

I don't hear the words Vix is sputtering out at me, tears spilling from her eyes. I don't listen to the Peacekeepers who tumble into the room around us, one of them talking calmly to me, hand out-thrust for the piece of glass. Tick is among them, nervous, horrified, watching Vix with eyes of wide concern.

Still undecided, the shard of glass slides down the length of her face, then I let it go, clattering to the ground. My hand a ruins of shredded skin and blood, as the Peacekeeper who has been trying to counsel me swoops forward and plucks me off the woman as if I weighed no more than a child.

I'm sobbing into the man's chest by the time he has me half dragged and half carried to the elevator. I don't know who he is. Not Brock, or Leon, or Peeta. Certainly not a rebel. An uncomfortable expression is on his face as he awkwardly carries me away from this disaster of a torture session.

When the elevator opens again I recognize the hospital floor. Doctors quickly take me from the man, usher me to my usual room. Leon is in there, half asleep in a chair with his legs propped up and he is woken up quick by the whirlwind of commotion that is brought in with me.

They wash away the blood on my hand, pick out the pieces of glass, then bandage it. My face is cleaned up again, another layer of salves added; this time they really do sting. One of the doctors tries to soothe my crying, until that proves to be too difficult. "She's tired," Leon tells the man when he gives me an exasperated sigh. "She's had a long day and an even longer night. Leave her with me."

A few of the doctors glance between each other. I get the odd feeling that they are used to being ordered around and not being allowed to ask questions. They simply nod, but a woman remains and says sharply, "I'm not leaving until she's sedated. Talk to her, quick. You have sixty seconds."

Leon shoots her a quick glance, then rushes to my bed side, sitting on the ledge. Surprisingly when he reaches for my hair and strokes it, I don't bite off his head. I can't stop sobbing. Those horrible gasping sounds I make when I cry continuing to choke any words I try to speak.

"It's going to be okay, Katniss," says Leon. "You're back with me. Brock won't get you again."

"I-I.." I try to speak. All I see is that woman, my indecision, Prim's disappointment. "I wanted to kill her so bad," I manage and the look of startlement on Leon's face is obvious. "But.. I _couldn't_."

Leon is unsure of how to reply. "I'm sure.. you didn't.."

"No. I wanted to."

"Then.. then something stopped you. It had to have been because.."

"No. I stopped me. Because my sister.. because Prim.." I begin to cry hysterically again.

"Okay, your time is up. Move aside." The doctor pushes Leon away, who watches with uncertain eyes as she gives me a shot. At first I flinch away, remembering Darius, but this woman isn't Brock. She's giving me a sedative. I'll get to sleep. In peace. No more crying.

Only my dreams aren't peaceful.

I dream of Mayor Undersee, but instead of Brock sitting on top of him, cutting at his face, it's me. I'm doing it without care, with joy. And I'm an awful sight. Another facet of myself, forced to watch as I turn into something monstrous. Something not me.

I cry out to myself on top of him, telling myself to stop, begging for the other Katniss to listen. It's not until I realize the Katniss on top of Mr. Undersee isn't pregnant that I take note to the Capitol's seal branded into her lower shoulder, across the back of her hands, on her neck, cheeks, legs.

I'm on my knees in the dream, hands clutching my bulging belly, when the Capitol Katniss slits the smile into Mayor Undersee's face, a smile of her own, on her lips. The dripping scarlet tears of the knife lifted to her face. Tongue licking along the length of the blade, blood dripping from her chin when she pulls it back. Eyes lifting, spotting me for the first time, and her smile widens, wickedly, until I feel as though a huge blackness sucks at me, dragging me through the floor.

The arena surrounds me, like in most dreams. I hear Darius' shouting coming from one of the tunnels, the Avox girl in another, Mayor Undersee, Madge, Cinna. All of them crying out for help at each corridor, and I spin around, not knowing which one to take. Then I start to hear Prim screaming on the left, and a baby wailing on the right and Peeta screeching. Gale, too. My mother. Leon. That strange man from lunch, Mr. March.

I don't know who to choose. I'm torn.

Like in most uncertain situation I lower my hands, to press them against my bulging stomach, to reassure myself, to steady myself, except.. I'm not pregnant. The wailing of the baby suddenly seems louder than everyone elses screams.

Then, I hear the humming. A whistling. And I know it's my father. I throw myself down that tunnel without thinking, running toward the sound of his singing. A strange song. Haunting in melody, tragic in lyric. The same song Madge hums. The one that her aunt liked. A song my mother hated, that made her upset when dad taught Prim and I to sing it, and she threw away our necklaces. _Our necklaces of rope._

I see him and throw myself at him recklessly, nearly plowing him off of his feet. In the dream he is insubstantial, his face unclear, tall and strong and tan, just like I remember him to be. Yet even when he breathlessly catches me around the shoulders, the song doesn't stop. A lullaby to my mind, to my sleep, in the background of everything I dream.

My arms circle my father's waist and I don't ever want to let go. Like in life he omits a sense of protection around me that I savor, that I have not felt since Peeta pulled me close in the arena and stroked my hair, not since days before my father died, so many years ago. "Don't go," I gasp, wish to convey. _Come back._

Father says nothing. Soon he is gone, not really ever there to begin with. My dream is of darkness and of that one memory. A simple dream; my fears balled up into one traumatic thrust and then a childhood memory brought forth by pain.

I have not sung "The Hanging Tree" out loud for ten years, because it's forbidden, but I remember every word. I knew even when Madge hummed it under her breath, and I pretended not to. I begin softly, sweetly, as my father did, crying out back at the whistling,_"Are you, are you, coming to the tree?"_

And the dream ends there, wading from darkness to a sharp awareness of my body. I turn sleepily over in my hospital cot. A hand rubbing at my eyes. I feel drowsiness hanging on my limbs as an after effect of the sedative. Stabs of pain arising on my face where I touch it and in my other hand that lays tangled in the blankets. The memory of my injured hand after the Quarter Quell announcement arises to memory, the time when I broke into the basement cellar.

Another thought, derived from the stiffness of my limbs, is of the arena, Rue, waking me after the Tracker Jacker attack. How unrested I had been even though I had slept for days; unrested because of the nightmares that kept my mind strained.

_Rue, _I think, then shake myself, force my muscles to sit up. Anything to push away the memories.

"You're awake." I turn to see Leon and he pushes a cup of water into my hands first thing. I drink it easily, the whole thing, grateful for the soothing of my parched mouth.

"How long?"

"It's only around two in the afternoon. You came in around three in the morning. Eleven hours, maybe a little more. Nothing to worry about, Snow doesn't really want you out there filming today anyway." He winces at the last part.

I raise a hand to touch my lip that pulses, pained, swollen. A ripe pink. I'm sure most of it is superficial damage that will fade enough by tomorrow to be covered by makeup. In no time I'll be back out there, on the streets, nothing changed.. only tomorrow is Friday. Tomorrow is the day of the rescue mission. For some reason, instead of exciting me, I'm only more exhausted, sinking back into the cot's blankets.

I lay there for a long time, blinking at the walls. Doctors come by to examine my hand or face. Apply more salves that sting. Leon paces sometimes at the end of my bed. Around dinner time he forces food into my mouth so that I eat. He got me my favorite. Lamb stew. My excitement is feeble.

I don't want to get up. Sleep isn't an option because whenever my eyelids close I see Darius hanging from metal cuffs, lifeless, or the Avox girl's screaming face. Madge's ugly scars, until it's me with the Capitol seal branded all over my body; Capitol Katniss, strangling Cinna.

I force myself to sit up and have petty conversation with Leon. He is compliant enough. A good distraction for my horribly disoriented mind. He doesn't ask questions about what happened last night. Won't press me about the details. My blatant express of homicidal intent.

We talk about the weather. He tells me stories about how he met and fell in love with his wife, Violet. I learn that his son's name is Benny. He's got Leon's eyes and like his mother the boy dyed his hair an odd color of purple. He turned three as of three months ago; Leon missed the party because he was babysitting me. Leon's favorite color is yellow, like Primroses. Prim likes a cat named Buttercup. I tell him about my house in the Seam. Hunting Sundays. Things that Katniss Everdeen enjoys and does.

When a doctor comes by and leans into the doorway, observing silently for several minutes, she informs me lightly that it's time for my shower. Almost as if I've been asleep up until that moment, I jolt to my feet, tumbling over the edge of the bed. Leon is uncertain about my eagerness, but happy to see me standing, to note an alertness in my eyes. He reluctantly hands me over to the group of escorting Peacekeepers in the hall.

For the duration of the walk from my hospital room to the shower, I keep my eyes on my toes. I'm not wearing shoes. Where are my shoes? I try to force my mind back onto what matters, bending it effortlessly onto a path of nervousness. I haven't seen Peeta since I told him I loved him. Now.. I look like this. Now, I lost two more people I was determined to protect. I've acted out worse than I ever have and who knows the level of furiousness Snow has against me.

We reach the room quick enough, and I enter, taking in long breaths. I stand near the shower after turning it on, my stomach withering as I wait for the door to open and for Peeta to step inside. When he does, when the black haired Peeta steps through the threshold, pulling the protective face cover from his head, I can see the timidness in his eyes, the fury, the pain.

He opens his mouth, as if to speak, and I only burst into a new set of infuriating tears.

Peeta rushes to me. "Shush, Katniss," he murmurs. "Katniss, I'm here. I'm so, so sorry. They won't hurt you here. I have you. You're safe with me." He pulls me into his chest.

I shake my head. "I'm not crying..."

"No. I know you aren't," Peeta agrees, nodding.

"_No_," I say. "I mean.." my voice catches. I pull away from his chest to peer up at him, his compassionate face. Blue eyes gleaming down at me in concern and relief. _If only he had seen me before this. _There wouldn't be compassion in his eyes then._ Or would there be? Would Peeta take my side? Would I make Peeta into a hateful incarnation if I let myself? Destroy him? _"I'm not crying because I'm scared, Peeta."

"Why–"

"I'm _angry_."

"At Snow?" he says, scathingly. Clearly loathing Snow very much himself.

My voice is quiet, fingers twisting into the fabric of Peeta's shirt, eyes lowering to a point beyond his shoulder. "At _me,_" I say.

"Whatever they told you, Katniss, it's not true. I know you didn't do anything. If they're trying to blame you for whatever they did to you or the others.. it _wasn't_ your fault. They only want you to believe that, but you.. _I know _that it wasn't you. Okay?" He tries to lift my chin with a finger, forcing me to make eyes contact, but I shake my head, pushing away from him. I stagger back a couple of steps, until I'm an acceptable amount of space away, breathing my own air. I look at him, then can't. I pivot my face away, downward, eyes straying across the length of the floor.

"This place has poisoned me," I say. "I've seen the way things work here. I've experienced the way people are taught things. How they are punished. It's not anything like what I used to think justice was. In my head.." my voice catches again, the shudder of a sob working its way up my throat, but I clamp it down, determined to explain this. For Peeta to understand what is happening to me. "These people, the Capitol, they think of people as nothing but pounds of meat. They have their way by force and pain. In my head I _hate_ them for that. I've always hated them for what they do. I hate myself when I think of what they do, and yet, their evil is in me, too. Because all I want to do is hurt them."

"You mustn't..."

"Perhaps I've changed," I mutter now. Thinking desperately of my sister. Of the baby I'm having with a mother who only wants to hate and tear things apart and claw the eyes out of random women and men. "Maybe.."

"No, Katniss. What's true for the Capitol isn't true for you."

"Then why do I feel so.. so _unhappy_? Why is it that all I want to do is _kill_?"

"Because you're not a monster, Katniss," Peeta says. "Because only monsters feel happy about killing. And that just proves it. You're different, yes," he breathes, taking slow steps back toward me. "I'm different, too. Everything is _different_. People change, all the time. Everything changes all the time. Is the world a monster because it changes from summer to winter? Just because things change, doesn't mean it has changed for the worst.." and his soft, lulling voice rolls off from there, as he reaches me, a tender hand resting against the bulge of my stomach. Peeta gathers me into his arms as delicately as if he were dealing with a skittish doe, and he pulls my back into his chest, slinging both hands around me to rest on the baby. His breath tickles my ear. "Sometimes it's for the better." Fingers trace pictures across my stomach, pulling my shirt aside to reveal my stretched, swollen skin. I can feel the warm smile on his lips when he turns his head to press them into the side of my neck, sending heat down to my toes. "People grow, learn from their past, heal."

"How do I know I've changed for the better? How.."

"You're not a monster, Katniss."

_Who am I, then? _"I tried to kill someone last night."

"I killed someone before. On accident, with berries," Peeta replies. "I still dream about it sometimes. It bothers me so much... she's always begging me not to forget her. She asks me why I tricked her. And I just can't get her out of my head, so I draw her. I don't let myself forget her. I learn how to deal with it. By drawing. And you deal with it by anger." He shrugs. "It's not as healthy, no, but everyone is different. The fact that it makes you unhappy just means that you're not like the Capitol. They enjoy death. That's what makes them the monsters."

I lean my head against his cheek and he inhales the scent of my hair, his exhale tickling my forehead and I close my eyes, feeling the fingers trace the seams and edges of my abdomen. I let Peeta support all my weight and he takes it easily, a solid wall.

"Whatever you felt," Peeta continues to say, "you didn't act on it. You tried, but in the end you didn't do it. There's evil enough in all of us–the Games prove that, at the very least. What matters is whether or not we act on it."

I can see the logic in his words. I want to believe all this faith he has in me. That I'm not as awful as I've come to think. Except can I really take the words of a boy who has loved me since he was five? But, no, that's not what I think of Peeta as. He's the boy I love, father of my child. The person who's always found a way to calm my inconsolable mind.

Which only makes me think that he's right. Things have changed. _Vastly_. How long ago did I start to admit my love for him? How long ago could Peeta ever even remotely be considered a father, let alone of my own baby? Six months? Four? That's not long at all, considering things. And in the past I might have viewed this as a tragic failure on my part. These changes would be dead negative in my old mind, only just a year ago, but now, here, they seem like the only things that could matter.

"Maybe.. you're right," I say, finally, voice still quavering a little.

"Maybe," Peeta allows. Then he says this, "I'm so glad you're here," and his voice is shaking in his relief. "I thought the worst yesterday when you weren't here. And then the rumors that were spreading through the staff.. and even now, Katniss. Snow is flying the coop. I don't know what you did last night but from what I've gathered by rumor, you did something that touched a sensitive spot yesterday. I think they said something about it never Snowing in March?"

"I don't know what that _means_," I sigh. "Leon mentioned it, and Brock, too. He made it seem like the reason I was getting in trouble. I talked to a man yesterday at lunch. A descendant of the first victor of all the Hunger Games. His last name was March."

Peeta is quiet for a moment, thinking. "I heard that."

"Do you know why that made Snow so upset? Why are the Marchs such a sensitive spot for him?"

"All I know is that when we filmed the propos a few months ago, Finnick mentioned these Marchs, but he didn't really know the secret behind them. Only that phrase; Have you ever seen it Snow in March? He told me that it was the best kept scandal on Snow's behave. Even the most laid back of costumers would clam up when he asked for those secrets in trade."

"Whatever these Marchs did, it worked. Maybe we could learn a thing or two from them."

"Maybe." Peeta sounds weary. "But we should wait.. wait until you're safely out of here and the baby, too. And me, for that matter. Please, for my sake, avoid this March guy. I don't think I could handle you going missing again."

"I wasn't missing, I was with Brock," I say, then rethink my words. I remember the look of the Avoxes.. Mayor Undersee... Madge.. Johanna. "Okay, I won't."

"Thanks." Peeta kisses the side of my neck again.

"Have you talked to the others about everyone else, though? I won't leave them."

"I know you won't," says Peeta, in a slightly amused, loving way; as though I was silly for thinking he'd forget, or that once again my words just prove that I'm not the monster I'd thought myself to be. "And there's a plan, yes. But I'm not a part of that one. It's separate from yours. My one priority is you."

For several more moments we stand there, mushed together, breathing. Peeta's hands are still moving across the bare skin of my stomach, arcing upward, moving in a slow circle, once, twice.. sketching out a few intertwining vines, a flower. "I love you."

"I know," says Peeta.

I feel strange saying it, still. Awkward. Vulnerable. I shift against him so that I can turn and be facing his front, staring up into his eyes. _What is he thinking? _He stares right back. One of his hands raises to brush softly over my swollen upper lip. He frowns. "I would kiss you," he says, "but this looks like it hurts."

I can't fight the smile that spreads across my face. Even that small stretch of my lips causes a slight pain, but I don't mind it. I open my mouth to speak. Peeta interrupts me, "You should shower," though when he says it, he strokes the side of my face with a thumb and then buries his hand into my hair. It's greatly gentle, yet I'm still reminded of Brock, dragging me down the hall by my hair. I nod my head numbly.

I undress, reaching for a towel to throw over the top of the fogged glass door. Just when I turn to reach for the bar of soup I'd forgotten to grab, Peeta already has it held out for me to take. I accept it lightly, considering. Nagged by something as Peeta's eyes are cast pointedly at my face.

"What?" he asks after some time passes. Then frowns. "Was it the wrong one? I thought I–"

"No," I say. "It's the right one."

"Then... what's the matter?"

I hesitate. "Nothing."

The shower is soothing. Hot water sears away the aches in my body and even my face starts to feel better when the water runs heavily over it. It tastes sweet and warm, and my skin is ruby red by the time I actually start to wash myself. Steam has gathered in the room like a heavy gray soup. Every breath is a little thicker and a little more enduring. Without considering it first I let my sore muscles sink to the floor of the shower, curling up underneath the water, the concrete biting into the delicate skin of my backside, knees hugged to my chest as close as the baby allows. All I can think is that _thank the odds_, there aren't any bad memories directly related to showers.

I feel safe here. Wrapped into a warm shell of water and steam and heat, surrounded by concrete bearings, Peeta in the background of it all, waiting, sitting within a few steps from me. So strange, because I never thought I'd ever feel something even remotely the same while within the Capitol, let alone Snow's mansion. And yet, I find myself rocked into a place of complete alleviation. Around me I feel as though I could be within the dream once more, arms wrapped around my father's waist.

"Katniss?" I can hear Peeta shift, turn his head, let it rest against the cool concrete wall, eyes closed. His voice nothing but a whisper of warm air. A mere rustling compared to the rush of hot water fanning over my head.

My reply is just as soft. "Yes?"

"Will you sing for me?"

For a moment I'm stunted. I hadn't expect him to ask that. Though, I've always known he loves my voice and maybe he, too, has been rocked into some safe place where he yearned to hear something that he loves. Something he has not heard since I sang Rue into death. Would he want that song? Do I really want to sing for him? Suddenly, I find my mouth opening, "I know a song, but it's illegal."

"I don't mind."

"It's not a pretty song."

"That's okay. Your voice is plenty pretty enough for me."

I draw in a long breath. The shower will compete with my voice, though, and I know that it'll echo coming from where I sit, but that doesn't matter much. The Peacekeepers beyond the door will only hear a meandering song. A woman singing to herself within a shower.

I begin as my father always did.

"_Are you, are you_

_Coming to the tree_

_Where they strung up a man they say murdered three._

_Strange things did happen here_

_No stranger would it be_

_If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree."_

I pause to breathe, can feel a strange prickle in the back of my throat. A thickening, remembering the dream. The song directly tied to Madge and my pain and my father.

"_Are you, are you_

_Coming to the tree_

_Where the dead man called out for his love to flee._

_Strange things did happen here_

_No stranger would it be_

_If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree."_

I stutter a moment, wondering what Peeta is thinking. If he's ever heard the song before. What meaning it may hold to him. How he would choose to consider the meaning of the tragic, endearing words.

"_Are you, are you_

_Coming to the tree_

_Where I told you to run, so we'd both be free._

_Strange things did happen here_

_No stranger would it be_

_If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree."_

I finish softly, slowly.

"_Are you, are you_

_Coming to the tree_

_Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me._

_Strange things did happen here_

_No stranger would it be_

_If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree."_

Peeta is silent. But that's it. Last verse. In the stillness I remember the scene. I was home from a day in the woods with my father. Sitting on the floor with Prim, who was just a toddler, singing "The Hanging Tree." Making us necklaces out of scraps of old rope like it said in the song, not knowing the real meaning of the words. The tune was simple and easy to harmonize to, though, and back then I could memorize almost anything set to music after a round or two. Suddenly, my mother snatched the rope necklaces away and was yelling at my father. I started to cry because my mother never yelled, and then Prim was wailing and I ran outside to hide. As I had exactly one hiding spot—in the Meadow under a honeysuckle bush—my father found me immediately. He calmed me down and told me everything was fine, only we'd better not sing that song anymore. My mother just wanted me to forget it. So, of course, every word was immediately, irrevocably branded into my brain.

We didn't sing it anymore, my father and I, or even speak of it. After he died, it used to come back to me a lot. Being older, I began to understand the lyrics. At the beginning, it sounds like a guy is trying to get his girlfriend to secretly meet up with him at midnight. But it's an odd place for a tryst, a hanging tree, where a man was hung for murder. The murderer's lover must have had something to do with the killing, or maybe they were just going to punish her anyway, because his corpse called out for her to flee. That's weird obviously, the talking-corpse bit, but it's not until the third verse that "The Hanging Tree" begins to get unnerving. You realize the singer of the song is the dead murderer. He's still in the hanging tree. And even though he told his lover to flee, he keeps asking if she's coming to meet him. The phrase _Where I told you to run, so we'd both be free_ is the most troubling because at first you think he's talking about when he told her to flee, presumably to safety. But then you wonder if he meant for her to run to him. To death. In the final stanza, it's clear that that's what he's waiting for. His lover, with her rope necklace, hanging dead next to him in the tree.

I used to think the murderer was the creepiest guy imaginable. Now, with a couple of trips to the Hunger Games under my belt, I decide not to judge him without knowing more details. Maybe his lover was already sentenced to death and he was trying to make it easier. To let her know he'd be waiting. Or maybe he thought the place he was leaving her was really worse than death. Didn't I want to kill Peeta with that syringe to save him from the Capitol? Was that really my only option? Probably not, but I couldn't think of another at the time. I guess my mother thought the whole thing was too twisted for a seven-year-old, though. Especially one who made her own rope necklaces. It wasn't like hanging was something that only happened in a story. Plenty of people were executed that way in 12. You can bet she didn't want me singing it in front of my music class. She probably wouldn't even want me to be singing it here, in the Capitol, in the hands of the very people who I would have rather died avoiding than endured.

Peeta finally speaks. "Thank you." That's it. Nothing else. I expected more.

"My father taught me that song."

"As he should."

I shift. "What do you mean?"

"I.. I just meant that he was a good singer, too. That he probably wanted you to know. I don't know." He sounds preoccupied of thought, now that I can hear him more clearly. Lost in his mind. "It was beautiful."

"It's an ugly song," I say in counter.

"But you like it," he points out.

"I do."

"Well I do, too."

"Why?" Strangely, I really do want to know.

Peeta is silent for several more moments. "Just remember your promise to me, Katniss. No matter what happens," and that is all he says.

_Always, _I had told him when he made me promise never to hurt myself again. When he forbid me from giving up on life. Is he worried that I would break said promise if he died? If I lost Peeta would I really be that way? Would I kill myself? Let myself slip into a numb shell, be a living ghost, as my mother once was when my father had left us? No. I wouldn't. I'd like to think I wouldn't be so weak. Yet, when have I ever been right? I thought I'd never let myself get pregnant. I though I'd never allow myself to love someone. I promised Prim not to change, whether good or bad, and I have.

How wrong I've been.

"They're knocking," says Peeta. "You better get dressed."

I stand hesitantly and reach for the silver knobs. I notice the bandage on my hand then, dripping wet. They'll have to change it now. They had probably thought I'd try to keep it dry. Oh, well.

When I step out and towel myself down, Peeta is by the door, one hand on the handle, waiting. I get dressed in the silence, walk toward him in hesitance, and when I pass him by, just before he opens the door, he presses a kiss to my cheek. Then I am in the hallway, being herded back to my room. Each step closer to my bed is just one night away from the day of rescue. Tomorrow is the day. Will it work? Will I be free within the next twenty-four hours? Will I get to see my family? Prim? Gale? Mother? Will everyone make it out of this mansion alive?

Those questions nag at me all night. And by the morning, when Leon reaches out to shake me awake, I find I haven't gotten any sleep at all.


	11. Chapter Eleven

_**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

A/N: I just want to apologize that this took so long. This one was really hard to do, because I wanted it _perfect _and that just isn't easy to do. Every detail I slipped in is for a reason. I also hope you enjoy it. (Don't worry, the next chapter won't take so long, especially since I have such faithful, loving reviewers to keep me motivated.) You'll find starting in this chapter Katniss is going to be turning more Katniss, and less emotional, as pregnancy, trauma, and imprisonment has left her. Thank you to everyone who supports me, it really touches my heart, and I thank anyone who reads, favorites, alerts, and reviews this. I apologize for typos. Reviews are love. -Taryn(:

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Chapter Eleven

The prep team comes to collect me, as if it is any other day. But I know better. As I endure their plucking and the make-up, I roll the plan through head over and over again, praying that it'll all be perfect. We can do

it. Peeta will come to me like every evening and we will find someway to slip from the shower room. But I find my mind filled with questions: Is there going to be a distraction to make sure we can slip through the main floor and outside without notice? What of Madge, Cinna, and Johanna? Will they get out in time to make the fifteen minute window? Are they leaving before me? After me? At the same time? Will the hovercraft be on time? Will we be in District 13 within the next few hours? Will Prim, Gale, and my mother be waiting there to reassure me?

Knowing me and knowing the odds, they won't be much in my favor, and more than one of those questions will get answered no.

Though I'm trying to hide my anxiety as the prep teams does up my hair, I can see Leon watching me uneasily from the back of the room. As if I'm a nervous wreck, ready to break. A house of cards one breath away from collapsing. Or, more accurately, a mentally and emotionally unstable pregnant teenager, with homicidal tendencies. Yes, that's probably the one he's concerned about.

For breakfast I don't get to make a request. It's gruel. Better for me, and the baby, Leon says. I stir it suspiciously. There is a scent of cinnamon coming from it that makes my stomach flip.

Just when I muster myself up to take a bite, the door of the prep room opens and I drop my spoon as President Snow slips inside the chamber. I remember all of yesterday, before Peeta, and the day before that. The Avoxes flicker inside my mind and I feel uneasy. When Vix buries herself to the surface of my thoughts I curl my hands into fists. President Snow doesn't look angry. In fact, his cool black eyes seem forcibly calm. He waves a pale hand at Leon, who immediately lowers his head and flees the room, and I feel a confliction of my utter loathing and fear to this man. I stand at attention, pushing away the breakfast, and Snow steps up to meet me face to face.

Snow examines me closely. "Did you have a nice rest yesterday?" he asks.

I swallow thickly. To be Katniss or the Capitol's Mockingjay? I know which one gets me back in the cell, no matter how much I wish to snap, and so I hold my tongue. For Madge. For Johanna. For Cinna. ___For myself__._ "Yes, thank you." I raise one of my hands to glide across the top of my lip, still slightly swollen, but healed over, and covered in makeup to hide the redness.

"No one will notice."

"Yes, your prep team is excellent," I say.

Snow steps closer to me, until all I smell is the stale blood on his breath. "I know about you attacking one of my employees. You nearly frightened dear Vix to death."

I take in a long breath through my teeth.___I am a brick wall__. _"I would like it if you sent her my apologies." My face turns away, unable to meet that cold stare, and my eyes travel across the floor. "It was a slip of judgment. Lots of.. Hunger Games instincts unburied by the.. time I spent with Brock."

"Then I shall inform both Mrs. Kludge and Head Peacekeeper Brock of their fatal mistake." Snow smiles now. Something is wrong. I can tell. He's too.. composed. I expected more anger, more punishment, I stare at him, trying to decipher the truth in his face. "I do hope this has reminded you of everything we both work for," Snow says.

"Yes," I tell him, lips barely moving. "I won't.." ___what had I done again? _"I won't.. misbehave."

"Good," says Snow, and he turns toward the mirror, as if our discussion is over. With his hands he straightens his suit, then he stares directly at the white rose pinned to his lapel. His fingers are a gentle as the nudge of a lamb's nose when he tugs at the petals and reposition the flower.

I'm just about to take a few steps away, if only to escape the smell of said rose, but Snow speaks. "I have someone special coming to dine with us today," his voice is strange, and I can't understand the emotion in it. A mixture between implying and an order. Soft, yet, grudged. "She isn't very eager to meet you. So mind yourself. She's got a frail.. temper."

"Who?" I ask.

"My daughter," and for some reason that sounds in of itself mocking.

I don't know how to reply so I merely nod. President Snow's daughter, who is she? I can't ever remember seeing her before. Never on the television or since I became a victor. I feel nothing at the prospect of meeting her, but then again I feel slightly eager; once I know who she is, it'll be easier to hunt her down and kill her one day.

President Snow makes to leave, his message delivered, walking toward the door, just about to reach for the handle, when he pauses. "It's a pity what happened to your friend," he says.

"My... friend?"

"Mr. March," Snow says, knowingly. There is sympathy in his voice that I can't decide if it is fake or real. "He died in his sleep last night. Truthfully, I never liked the man, though I've known him since he was just a mere infant..." Snow's voice becomes somewhat amused... "...some say it was poison that did it."

Then he is gone.

___Some say it was poison that did it._ Snow poisoned Frier? How? Obviously he could have just invited him back over and slipped something into the poor man's drink, but I'm more concerned with the why. Why would President Snow suddenly find a need to murder that man? Because he talked to me? I don't understand that, or that strange phrase that surrounds the Snows and the Marchs. All I know is that now my promise to Peeta will be easier to fulfill with no Mr. March to talk to.

By the time Leon returns and has me escorted to the front of the mansion, Plutarch is waiting for me. My camera director hands Leon the note with his instructions as though I had not put a hand out to receive them. Leon frowns, which makes me concerned, considering how many things that could go wrong today. I lean over to try and see what the note says, but Leon pulls it from my view. He simply tells me that we've just been given permission to travel further into the Capitol today.

"Where?" I ask.

"Anywhere."

"_Anywhere?"_

"Within the confines of the Capitol, yes."

A loud crashing sound of my right causes me to turn and catch sight of two men tumbling to the floor, a tray of dirty dishes shattering because of it. One of the Avoxes sputters noiselessly, patting the air around the broken shards of glass as though afraid to admit he dropped it. The other is silent, hurriedly picking up the pieces and tucking them into his shirt. I note instantly the bronze hair of this Avox, and then stiffen when his eyes fly to mine, their green-blue depths wide and panicked and afraid.

_Afraid?_ I try to open my mouth, or think of something to do, but Leon tugs on my wrist. "It's just an Avox, Katniss."

"But–" I stumble, too late. Finnick is standing again, and the other Avox is ushering him toward the servant door on their right. With one more frantic glance over his shoulder, Finnick disappears from my sight.

"Katniss," Leon says, "it's not actually a victor, just some cheap knock off. He got surgeries and all that snazz."

_Snazz? _I think, still stuck on the look of fear in Finnick's eyes. After a few more moments of hesitation, I turn back to Leon. "Are we leaving?"

Leon watches me carefully, his eyes flicking toward the door where the two Avoxes dispersed. His lips press into a thin line, but otherwise his suspicion or unease seems to settle itself. "Yes, let's go."

By the time we are two streets away from the mansion my face is numb from smiling and the cold. In my head I try to come up with a reason why Finnick might have looked at me like that. Had Snow found Peeta out? Or maybe somebody else? Is he just worried about the day? Had it been mine and Leon's conversation that upset him? _Would someone in the Capitol try to hurt me?_

Inevitably, there are a lot more people than before. So many I feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount. The amount of people who wave at me from windows of the buildings that tower over me, even the rooftops, or balconies seem to be endless. The ones that run out of shops, bags in hand, jelly donuts clenched in their mouths, is astounding.

The gifts, too are growing more expensive, more flashy. I get a powdery-blue jacket from an older woman, who spends about five minutes with her hand on my stomach, insisting on feeling my baby kick, though I was quite sure the baby was asleep anyway. I eventually just tell her about last night where he would not stop nudging me. On the seventh street I get a pair of deer skin gloves, the insides stuffed with the feathers of a dove. A rather _nice_ gift. And though I slaughtered animals all my pre-teen years and more, the gloves make me feel a little more disgusted by these people, not killing for need, but rather luxury. I re-gift them to one of my Peacekeeper escorts. He just blinks at me in confusion as I smile painfully back, squeezing his hand until he takes them from mine, realizing it is more of an order than a request.

Just after the man takes them I turn on my toes, meaning to return to the space in the middle of my six escorts, and rejoin Leon there, but I'm stunted momentarily, by the person on my left. A Peacekeeper with gray hair and blue eyes. Boggs? I smile at him, too, a little less widely and the man stares evenly back. It's him, I decide. I return to Leon who is already accepting the next person to rush up next to me.

More streets pass by and for some reason, the further away from the mansion, the more.. free I feel. The beat of dark wings in my mind, of constant thoughts consumed with worry, about why Finnick reacted, or the rescue mission, or my baby, have ceased in the broad daylight and fresh air. In my head I had thought the further away I was from the mansion the further from safety I might have felt. Except, it feels more like escaping and the oppressive nature of Snow's mansion can't reach me way out here. The essence of freedom driving me faster forward, toes itching to bound across the streets all on my own, away from the crowds and the escorts.

Despite this, I smile at the camera, and I shake hands with a young woman who looks more like a cat than a person. "You have such lovely eyes," I tell her, now so used to lying it seems natural, for me, Katniss Everdeen, who used to be so absolutely awful at acting, can actually lie so convincingly that I get a beam in return for this. Underneath my skin it makes me sick knowing the Capitol has done this to me. They've succeeded in changing me. It's not the lying that upsets me. It's knowing that this isn't the only thing that's changed. Yet, I find myself turning Peeta's words around in my head. ___Sometimes it's for the better._Maybe it's a good thing I know how to tolerate people, that I've learned to act and lie and act pleasant, no matter how I'm feeling.

It's a piece of myself, a character of me, that has fallen away. I have grown up into something more. I wonder if anyone will grieve its loss aside from me. No one liked my abrasive manner. My brush off technique of everything. My snapping replies that made sure I had no friends. I will miss it greatly. And soon, maybe redevelop it, if anything, when I'm allowed.. but already I see the benefits of pretending.

A child runs up to me. He's a boy of maybe five, and almost instantly his sticky, sweaty hand reaches for mine and clenches his tiny fingers around it, still sore from the glass shard. I wince under my breath as he asks me for my favorite color. For a moment I just stare down at this boy. He's got a ridiculous head of flame patterned curls. Inspired by me? I try to pull my fingers from his tugging grasp, but his wide gaped tooth smile demands an answer.

"Green," I answer him.

The kids jolts from my side into a mother's arm within the second. "Mama! I want green hair! Today, now." He tugs at her long blond curls that reach her waist, and the blue skinned woman winces. "Mama! _Now_!"

"Okay, muffin," the woman murmurs. The two of them wade away into the crowd, and all I can think is how unbelievably rude her son is. Needy. Self-centered. Demanding. Not one ounce of courtesy in him or a single _please_ within his request.

Throughout the next five blocks my head is full of wonderment. Would my baby turn into that? Will she meet me in sixteen years and be no more than a stranger, and instead of possessing Peeta's innocence or goodness or charm, she will only have contempt toward the people of the districts, ___her people_, and she will be as injudicious as that little boy?

I frown at the thought. Then receive a shock from the cameraman for showing my displeasure. I hiss, and the man who was talking to me stops in the middle of his sentence. Eventually, I choke out an excuse. The sun in my eyes. The mere beauty of the Capitol blinding me. The repulse I feel toward them, momentarily obscuring my thoughts. Oh, wait, not that last one. That might be implying I don't like them. Awkwardly, Leon steps in to escort him away and I accept the next citizen with more enthusiasm.

As I'm turning on the next street, heading back toward the mansion for lunch, I start to remember what that woman and Snow had told me about the my child and the Capitol. Does my little girl really need the Capitol? Or does the Capitol need her? Would I potentially be harming my baby by leaving this place? Would that be a huge mistake?

But how could it be? I heard what that doctor said about the only other place with the technology to help my baby is District 3. She made it sound like the district was nothing but ash. That's District 12, not 3. Violet is in District 3. If no one can help my baby, if President Coin is indifferent to this cause, then I have her to fall back on.

Come the moment I reach the mansion and step inside, Leon steers me toward the usual dining hall. I try to collect all my Katniss pieces and shove them into a safe place inside me, to lock them up tight; the rescue plan, Finnick's fear, my baby, everything not to do with the Capitol's Mockingjay, even Violet and Mr. March. By the time I enter the dining hall, I'm ready to face Snow's daughter and a handful of other rich Capitol citizens. I try to smile the instant I emerge, but Snow is waiting there to escort me to my seat and I feel my stomach flutter a little. Then it does it again. I make a face of displeasure. Someone at the table, a man, leans toward me, as I walk passed him. "Is something wrong?" he asks.

"Just.." I begins, and I place a hand across my abdomen as I sit.

"Hiccups, probably," says a new voice. I lift my head to see whom. A woman sits across from me, who is at first, strange and cold-looking, with black hair curling around her pale face and a pair of flinty blue eyes, that stare straight through me. She isn't quite sneering, but she could be, if I let the twist of her lips bother me. She has to be in at least her mid-forties, with frown lines gathered at the corner of her mouth. There is an unusual beauty in her pale eyes, and the arc of her stark black eyebrows against her high forehead. "It's common for babies to get hiccups," she continues to explain. "When I was pregnant with my daughter I remember being awake most nights because of it."

It occurs to me, like Mr. March, this woman has nothing odd about her. Nothing that screams Capitolite. No odd fashions, or outrageous hair, or dyed skin. When President Snow, still at me side, steps in to introduce this peculiar woman to me, I know already who I'm looking at. "This is my daughter, Cori Snow."

I mutter a greeting, only to see she just flits her pale eyes to my face and glares at me. "And you're the fabulous Katniss Everdeen, wonderful," she glances around the room, and everyone who had been staring turns away. "Where's lunch?" Cori demands.

Curiously, out the corner of my eyes, I peek at President Snow, wondering if this behavior she presents would upset him. I find Snow isn't angry in the least. In fact, he merely takes his place at the head of the table and orders the Avoxes to serve his guests.

I find I'm not hungry much, I only sip at my juice, and no matter how I shift, I can feel the hiccups every once in awhile. Peeta would love this, no doubt. I, myself, find it another con on the list of things my baby has compiled over the past six months.

On the other hand, I find myself distracted from the food, for another reason. Observing Snow's daughter is easy enough, but understanding her is something entirely different. I gather that she is rude. Like the boy today, she is demanding and brash.. but there is something just _angry _about her. Bristling underneath the layer of her flawlessly white skin. As though she wished nothing more than to be free of this place. Of me. Of her father.

I don't know why.. but I had thought of Snow's family.. differently. I imagined him a fragile wife. A mousy-obedient daughter or two, with delicate dispositions and horribly distorted fashion sense. A son who is a miniature him. People that were soft and used to the life of luxury. Not Cori. Yet, the fact that she is so nervy makes my promise to slowly kill all of Snow's loved ones and family so much easier to fulfill. One day, I might come back to this mansion, ready to sink an arrow into Snow's neck, but only after I murder Cori, before his eyes. That way he can be punished the same way he punished me; with Mayor Undersee's torture, Darius' blood, and the Avox girl's screams.

Cori notices my stare. She raises her head and overlooks me sharply, those icy eyes, for one moment, reminding me of Snow's cold stare. With everyone around the table mingling and eating, her words go unheard, "What are you going to name the baby?"

I stutter for a moment, surprised by the question. "I have no idea."

"Nothing stupid," Cori lists easily. "Make it a good one."

"Like what?" ___No flower names__, _I find myself thinking. And didn't Peeta make me a bet? Was that still standing, and if so, I find on principle, no stupid names. And even though I know someday I'll kill her, I indulge in this petty motherhood subject just as pleasant as Snow has taught me to be about things. A fake glint of interest in my eyes, a neutral expression to my face as I meet Cori's hard stare.

When she doesn't come up with an immediate suggestion I ask, "What did you name your daughter?" ___Will I kill Snow's granddaughter, as well? Is he closer to her? Does she look up to her grandfather?_I'm guilty of picturing her as she squirms and begs me for a chance. I have to shake my head slightly to clear it. The fantasy of a seventeen year old shouldn't be about murdering Snow and his family, but, I guess I've never been a normal teenager.

"Kori, with a K," says Cori. I can't help but feel a tug of amusement as well as a scowl on my face at the complete unoriginality of that name, considering her own name. She must have been expecting it, or had seen it, because she sneers, "I named her for my brother."

"You have a brother?"

"He died a very long time ago. I was only a baby. But, yes, I had a brother. Once."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Like hell you are," she mutters.

I feel a snap throwing itself up my throat, nearly slipping out into the open, but I clamp it down. Does she really see through my mask, or does she just know? How much does her father tell her? Is she Snow's only child?

After that comment from her though, thankfully and unfortunately, Cori loses interest in me and lunch proceeds as a silent ordeal, where at any given moment I share a smile with the people sitting around me, until, finally, Leon comes to retrieve me.

Now that it's the afternoon, I can feel my uncertainty full force. Lunch is lost from my mind as Leon and I pace down the Capitol streets along with my escorts. The hours ticking away seem to be moving in slow motion. There is a live propo I am forced to do, where I have to tour a museum of the Hunger Games History. It, honestly, was the worst thing I had to endure in all my propos. All those pictures. The statues of the victors. Small meaningful objects inclosed in glass cases, stolen from the dead tributes, all their tokens. From a girl that was reaped for the Twenty-seventh Hunger Games, she had brought a pair of metal anklets. Apparently, according to the way the museum maintainer puts it, those anklets played a key role in her death. How? I had turned into a brick wall throughout the bloody story.

Smiles slowly begin to die the longer the minutes drag by. Around four or five it becomes hard to carry my bulk on down the streets. Leon starts to offer me his elbow, the way many Capitolite men and women do it. I see them walking down the streets together, nattering about nonsense. Stubbornly, I refuse him for a few blocks, then my feet start to flare randomly in pain, and I give in.

Awhile later, I realize I'm leaning heavily into him, but he isn't complaining. Even though the day is crisp, I don't have to steal his or Boggs or anyone elses jackets thanks to the gift one of the citizens gave me early that morning. Yet, I find myself shivering. I fidget with the buttons, to hide the tremor of my hands, until I receive a shock for such fidgeting.

A slight gasp escaped me as a result. Loen, who felt the jolt through my arm, throws the cameraman a look. "Are you unwell?" Leon asks me.

"No," I say, stubbornly. If I'm unwell I won't be able to go through with the rescue mission. I have to go on, no matter how light-headed I feel. "I'm fine." I drop Leon's arm after that and make sure to walk a pace or two ahead of him, greeting each citizen before him.

I'm in the middle of a discussion about the joys of winter with an elderly man when my knees start to grow stiff. I excuse myself from the man to greet a teenager some yards away just to stretch my legs. That doesn't help. By the time I move away from the adolescent, my legs are beginning to feel numb.

"Leon," I say, and realize I'm breathless. I try to finish what I was going to say but I find my mouth and tongue thick and awkward, heavy with saliva, where as my throat stings dryly.

"Katniss?"

Before I can communicate my reeling mind, I lose my balance on the sidewalk and my hand flies out for balance. Thankfully my fingers catch his uniform at the bicep and twist into the fabric as I steady myself on buckling knees. "I need to sit."

"Are you alright?"

"Just.." I swallow thickly. "I just need to sit."

Easily, Leon orders people out of his way, and they scatter; he's still got the voice of a Head Peacekeeper. The six escorts fan out and keep the space around us clear. Where Leon chooses to place me is in a metal chair that is a part of a restaurant outside sitting area. The smells of deep-fried and sugary foods flood my senses and I feel a painful wave of nausea as though a hand of thorns grips me by the gut.

"Katniss?"

"Give me a moment." I lower my head as close to my knees as possible. "I–" I lose all my juice from lunch across the pavement and Leon shouts at the cameraman to stop recording. I feel him whisk from my side and then he returns with silk napkins to wipe are my face and mouth. For one heartbeat he hesitates, then brushes the hair from my forehead, and I push away his hands. "Wait," I say. _This can't be happening._ I have to be strong for tonight. Peeta is waiting for me after dinner. The rescue mission will be thrown off course if my schedule changes. I shout at the cameraman to turn the cameras back on.

Dizzily, I get back to my feet. Leon insists I sit. He tries to push me back down by the shoulders and I can't understand why he won't stop. "I don't have to sit!" I snap and stubbornly press on. I stumble away from him five or six steps, then feel my legs lurch to the left.

Thankfully, Boggs leaps forward to catch me by the arm. He'll know what needs to happen. He knows about the rescue plan. I allow him to pull me to my feet, pressed against his side. Boggs turns his square shoulders to Leon, who is for the first time I notice, red cheeked – why? Because of the cold air?

"We should take her back to the mansion, she's in need of doctors," says Boggs.

"Absolutely not!" Leon says, indignant. "She's to be filming propos until we are ordered otherwise. Step back into your rank now or I'll be forced to report you to your betters!"

Boggs' jaw tenses, but he surrenders me up to Leon anyway. Leon forces me back into the chair, while throwing Boggs dark looks over his shoulder. Just when I try to stand again, Leon leans forward slightly, his lips just above my ear, and he whispers, "Just sit and be sick. Don't worry. We'll ditch them momentarily, then I'll give you something to help you with the affects of the poison."

My heart sinks slightly from its current panic.

"What?" I croak.

"Shh," Leon hushes me and he sits in the metal chair next to mine, pushing out a huge breath.

How can he look so relieved? He just told me I've been poisoned. "What..." I struggle to gets words around the tangle of saliva and tongue in my mouth. How can my mouth be so moist and my throat so raw and dry? Each swallow is harder and thicker than the last. "I.."

I retch, but nothing comes. Soon after, before I can control my body I'm retching and gagging and am unable to do anything but heave at the pavement, bent over in the chair, knees spread apart. Leon pats my shoulder, while my escorts are anxiously watching me each time I lurch forward.

Then it occurs to me: ___Did Leon poison me?__ Does he know about the rescue mission and this is his way of trying to stop it from happening. Is it his plan to detain me here until the time for the mission is long passed? _The numbness in my legs seems to be spreading upward my body and though it's better than pain, I don't know if I should worry, or not worry as Leon told me to. "Leon," I snarl, through a choking gasping sound. "What – did – you – do?"

Leon sits forward so that he is close to me and the others won't hear him speak. "Do you trust me?"

"Trust you?" I hiss. _How can I trust you?_

"I'm getting you out of here."

_Is Leon a part of the rescue mission? _How could he be? Peeta told me not to trust him.

I turn to him, but as I do I catch a pair of eyes. Boggs staring straight at me, as if trying to forcefully put thoughts into my head. A flash of true emotion in his face. I bite into the side of my cheek, shake my head to convey to him I don't understand, then retch dryly once more.

I'm starting to see bright hues at the edge of my vision by the time Leon strikes into action. He stands so abruptly the metal legs of the chair screech against the pavement. I see him pull the gun from around his back in a sharp movement and I barely manage a squeak of protest when he sends six bullets into the six backs of my Peacekeeper escorts. _What are you doing? _I want to ask, shout, but my tongue is useless in my mouth as Leon reaches for my waist and pulls me to my feet. He hauls me inside the restaurant without looking back once.

Bright colors and lights whirl around me as we wobble through the establishment. All I can think about is Boggs. _Boggs got shot. Leon shot Boggs. What is happening? _I try to recall that one trick the doctors taught me.. the list rolling through my head... _My name is Katniss Everdeen. I'm seventeen years old. Oh, odds, Leon's lost his mind. _I try to struggle, and I don't know if I accomplish it, but at one point I feel a sharp stab on my thigh.

The next thing I'm conscious of is someone lowering me to the floor. Around me I can smell something sweet, like lavender, and beyond that I can smell the food worse than ever. A warm hand presses into my cheek. "She'll recover soon enough, just give the antidote some time," says a whispering female voice close to my side. "Do me a favor and call Plutarch."

"Right," Leon agrees. I hear the dialing sound of the phone. "Right. Right," he repeats, overwhelmed.

Blindly I reach out with a hand, my eyelids lead painted and resisting. All of my skin feels numb and useless, but my fingers claw at the tile floor underneath me. Leon is talking, "We have her. Yes, yes, she's here, too."

"Let me have it," says the female voice. I hear Leon's footsteps. "Plutarch? Yes, it's me. Katniss is safe.. if not a little wobbly. Yes. No. Of course I wouldn't let that happen. The Peacekeepers were shot. Well why else? _Do it now! _Snow won't see it coming and Katniss is out of reach.." then there is a small pause, and all I hear is Leon muttering nervously under his breath. The woman's voice becomes a sharp, proud sort of regal, "You're a brave man, Plutarch. I value that in you. This is goodbye." She hangs up the phone.

By now my vision is clearing a bit. I manage to pry my eyelids open some, only to be blinded by the light. My mouth is working freely. "Where?" I croak, and someone presses a bottle of water into my hands.

"Drink this, keep it down." I see the blurry figure of her face and then she turns away, a haze of skin and color. "Leon, grab the clothes and makeup." The female grasps me by the wrists and begins to force the bottle to my lips. I drink it greedily, so much so that at first I don't notice her tugging at my clothes.

"What are you doing?" I demand, voice clear, but the moment I manage that puff of sound, I'm lightheaded. I fade out of the present, and things whirl by.. I feel a moments bareness, then itchy fabric and powder on my face. I try to twist away, resisting, and I'm not sure if I manage it.

I have a vague feeling of being half-awake; clouded out of reality. A dull pounding in my head and neck, and a slowly waning numbness across my body as I'm being pulled around. The next thing I know, is a loud male voice. "Leon?" I breathe, struggling with my facial muscles so that my lips part and my eyes open.

"Yes, Katniss," I hear Leon say, and I realize he has me in the standing position, an arm hooked tightly through mine. When my vision clears I'm not actually sure what I'm seeing is real. Leon, with red hair and makeup and brown eyes. I blink several times. He's wearing a funny little outfit of green trousers and a flowered button-down shirt. "Keep your head down," he tells me.

_But where's that woman? Why is Plutarch brave? You shot Boggs. _"Why are you... Leon, I can't feel my fingers." I clench them desperately, yet can't feel the familiar bite of my fingernails in my palm. The fact that I can not even control my own hand makes me nervous, if not the sudden change of scenery and position hasn't already forebode to something terribly wrong.

"They'll work soon, I promise. I'm sorry for this." I notice he's sweating, the beads dripping slowly down his forehead and across his neck. We're standing in a doorway of a shop. I look around and people don't seem to notice me as they go about their shopping and mingling.

When I turn my head to look out a nearby window, the sunlight blinds me and I squint painfully.

Leon says something that my ringing ears miss.

"What?"

"Can you walk?"

I take a shaky step, my foot like dead weight. My knee is a broken hinge and buckles underneath my weight, nearly bringing me to the floor of the shop. To cover my clumsy display that people glance over at, Leon laughs loudly. His Capitolite accent suddenly very heavy. "Silly, child," he says, clamorously, obnoxiously, "let me help you."

He takes my arm again and sweeps me from the shop to the street outside. I look about myself. A group of white uniformed Peacekeepers sweeps down the street, armed and harried. Leon turns me down the nearest alley, then back paddles when he sees another team of Peacekeepers. Leon reaches for my face and pulls the edges of the jacket I wear to my jowls and pushes my face low underneath a feathered hat. "If they find us now they'll kill me and.." he doesn't have to finish. _If the wrong people find me I'm in for worse._

I may not know what's going on or how I got here or what I'm wearing, but I know I have to find the rebels, and fast. I know that all the rebels are in the mansion, though. Or are they? What of Leon? He's not.. I don't think. And that woman? Was that his wife? Possibly. Peeta told me not to trust Leon, is this what he meant? The fact that I was poisoned by him makes my instincts dislike this situation greatly, but he did give me the antidote.. so...

"Where are we going?"

"To an old apartment two streets from here. We'll be safe there. From there we can lay low for a few days and then find a way to smuggle you out of the city. We can't today because that's the first place Snow will check for you; leaving the city. He'll be locking down the train stations this very moment..." then Leon swallows, his adam's apple bobbing. "That is.. if.."

"If what?"

"If Plutarch doesn't go into play before he has the chance."

"What does that mean? What is Plutarch putting into play? Who was that woman?"

"A friend," Leon says numbly. "She's a friend."

"I need to go back," I tell him, tugging at his arm. "I need to go back to the mansion."

"No, Katniss, you don't have to go back there ever again."

"No! I _have_ to go back! You don't understand."

"I do, Katniss," Leon says, and he forcibly pulls me into the nearest building. A drug store. Leon leads us to furthermost shelf in the back and pushes me into a wall. He glances about, then to the ceiling, where no doubt cameras are mounted. His breath his hot in my face and his green irises are so bright and so sharp they appear as though scattered shards of a broken emerald. "If I don't get you out of this city, then my son is lost to me," Leon informs me.

"What? How?"

Leon, clearly unwell, obviously nervous, shakes me slightly by the shoulders. Already I'm starting to regain function of my body, but my mind seems to be lagging. His fingers digging painfully into my shoulder blades seem to revive me some, if not enough. "The odd forsaken rebels are using my son against me," he spits, and I realize how suddenly angry he looks. "I had to kill those men. Those good men, my people," he frets. He sounds more as though he's convincing himself rather than me. "I have to do this for Benny, because otherwise they'll kill him."

"Who?" I ask. _Peeta? Would the rebels of District 13 do that?_

Except before I can go too far in depth with that, Leon says, "The Capitolite rebels in District Three."

"But.. your wife..." The pieces all start to fall into place suddenly. Leon isn't a rebel. He's not working for Peeta and the rebels of District 13. He's working for the remaining allies and supporters of Heavensbees. To me is seems only they would find it alright to threaten a child for their own advantage. "Can't your wife.. do something?"

"Like what?" Leon says. "I don't even know if they had to force her to relent to it. As far as I know she's not their prisoner. I thought I knew her, but really, what do I know? She could be the one who suggested using my son against me. To make me do something against all my life's training."

"No," I say. I shake my head. What does Plutarch have to do with any of this? And that woman? "Your wife wouldn't let them kill her own son.." but even I don't sound sure.

"For _you_, maybe" Leon spits venomously. There is no mistaking the hatred in his eyes as he stares down at me. It is enough loathing to knock me breathless all over again. I see what's happened to him. It's come down to protecting the Capitol by keeping me locked away or saving his son by smuggling me free. His baby or his heritage. His president and me, or baby Benny, with purple hair and Leon's green eyes. A wife who'd rather have a rebellion than a child. I recall earlier, when I had thought I could turn to this woman when President Coin is oblivious to my plight of motherhood, and I feel a huge unease, sickened, at the thought of her now. _To use her own son as a hostage..._

"There are.. others... Leon," I try to explain. I know I can't ditch him. How could I? He's twice my size and strength. I'm six months pregnant and in a city I don't know. "You have to take me back. I promise that your son will still be fine... I'll still be able to get away. You can come with," I hastily promise. Anything to get back. "There will be a hovercraft. District Thirteen.."

Leon shakes his head. "Snow has done more damage than I thought he has to your mind."

"My mind is _fine_!" I snap. I feel the frustration gathering. The more time that passes the smaller my window of freedom grows. "Take me back to the mansion!" Unintentionally my voice raises above our carefully hushed whispers and Leon glances around the store.

"Katniss, keep your voice down. Every Peacekeeper in the city will be on the lookout for you. That means every pregnant woman. We managed to make you look round, but who knows what lengths the Peacekeepers will go to, even at the risk of insulting the weight of a Capitolite woman." Leon fidgets with the layers of my jackets and I shove his hands away. "Look," says Leon, "I know you're not sure what's going on and this is all a lot to take in, but we can't go back to the mansion. There won't be a mansion soon."

"What?" I ask furiously. "What do you mean?"

Leon merely shakes his head, a weary gleam in the back of his eyes and he drags me back out of the store by the arm. I try to keep up as we emerge into the streets full of citizens and Peacekeepers. Leon hugs the sides of the buildings and keeps his own head low, shrugged beneath his shoulders.

It occurs to me that Leon won't take me back no matter what I say. No matter how much I wish it, Leon won't believe in the plan from District 13 rebels. To him there is only him and the Capitol, but I know there's a third leg in this race. There are three sides of the war looking for me tonight and I only want one of them.. actually, no. I need one of them. The only thing I particularly want is to be somewhere safe with my family, and that means all of my family; Prim, Mother, Gale, Peeta, even, I find myself thinking, Haymitch and Madge and Cinna. To fulfill this I must return to my family, not remain here with Leon. I'll have to ditch him. It would be easy enough to lose him in the press of the crowd across the shops and sidewalks, but running would only draw more attention to me. How would I know where to go? I know the mansion is in the center of the city. Could I merely ask someone for directions? Would they recognize me beneath my new mask of makeup?

I experimentally tug at Leon's arm and his grip is like an iron chain. "Leon," I whisper in a last ditch convince, "you have to take me back. If you don't.. I'll..."

"You'll what?"

I search my mind frantically for something, just as a beeping sound issues from Leon's pocket. I watch as he raises a phone to his ear. Once the first person says their bit, Leon says, "No, we're still too close. _Yes, _I'm going as fast as I can. Stall just a bit longer."

Then, I watch closely as a horrible dark shadow passes over Leon's face at the words the other person on the line delivers. At first it seems he is upset, angry.. those emotions quickly turning into chagrined fear. "How could that happen? She left her _there_?" Leon demands. "Why didn't you stop her? He'll get away! She'll tell him in the instant... no I don't think she'll keep it secret, she's too loyal." A nearby couple shoots Leon a sharp glance, and it's me who steers us away from the crowds into a alcove between a store and an alley. "Do it anyway... if you don't do it now.." Suddenly, before I can grasp who or what Leon is talking about, the Peacekeeper attached to my arm lurches into a run, dragging me merciless behind.

The Capitol citizens that I have just spent my day visiting with, stare after us, shocked, perplexed, looking around for some danger. Some of them shout at us to slow down, or ask us what the hurry is. A few Peacekeepers even make grabs for us, probably assuming, and Leon who had secreted a gun inside his overcoat, pulls it free to fire a few shots at the pavement so that the people yelp, jump back, and begin to scatter.

"What are you doing!" I shout above the noise of the bullets clashing into the pavement. I try to rip my arm from his hand, stumbling two steps backward, that only causes the joint of my shoulder and arm pain. I twist savagely to get away, and Leon pulls me harshly back to him. I fall to my knees. I try to use my weight against his, like a child resisting its mother, as I sit heavily on the ground, both hands clutching onto Leon's arm, pulling him downward, too.

"Katniss, stop it! Get up!"

I twist away, pulling as much as I could to be free. _When did I become so weak? _For a moment I think I have won, when Leon seems to stop fighting me. Then Leon rips me forward, and I have to turn so that it is my shoulder that hits the pavement. "I'll drag you if I have to!"

"_I have to go back_," I spit in reply.

What is he doing? Where would we go? This is the Capitol. Snow will know about this in less than five minutes. He probably already knows. "Leon." I don't want to hurt him. Not truly.

Leon twists my wrist painfully. I bite back a cry, as the people around the area, who originally scattered at Leon's gun fire, reemerge. Without hesitating, Leon throws himself down the nearest alley, and like he promised, drags me relentlessly behind, barely on my feet, skimming my heels painfully against the concrete.

We're nearing the end of the alley when Leon snarls at me, "I'm saving your life," and we stagger to a stop. The grown man whirls on me, and for one heartbeat he raises the gun and points it directly at my face, barely inches away and I pause in my struggles.

"What do you mean?" I rush out, a puff of air.

He doesn't answer, only takes off down the nearest street and sprints, hauling me behind, scattering bullets into the air and sidewalks at the crowds of citizens, that flock in the directions of Peacekeepers, blocking the white uniformed law enforcement's paths. "Leon, stop!" But no, he is running still, ripping my arm out of the socket. _"_Leon! I have to go back!"

He's lost his mind, I think. So I do the only thing I can do. Despite how hopelessly unfair the fight is, I throw myself at him, in a sudden change of effort and it throws him off balance, staggering to his left. Violently, images of Gloss and I in our struggle at the end of the Games comes to mind and I throw my foot between Leon's.

We are teetering, and though he clutches my shoulders and arms for balance, in a desperate clench for proportion, I feel our equilibriums failing us. I throw out an elbow to soften the landing, and then wince when Leon throws me away from himself. I stagger to stay standing, and do, while he falls to a knee, then easily pushes himself back up with his hands. He stares at me, lips pressed into a thin line, across the distance of some three feet between us. I find I'm breathless already from the run and even so, I feel the tenseness around us. One move and he leaps at me. One twitch of a hand in the wrong direction and the three feet turns into an arm around my waist.

I don't want to doom his son to death by refusing Leon. Not truly. After everything Leon has done for me. In our stillness, all his little kindnesses seem to pile up between us. Him finding me my favorite stew. Being there for me when no one was, when I lost my home, my freedom. Telling me his secrets, his insecurities.. him comforting me each and every time I was fresh out of my torture sessions. The day we sat together and talked about Prim, and when he told me about Benny.

If I go with him I risk losing Peeta, I risk never making it to District 13 where my sister is, my best friend, my mother.. it makes me think of the arena. If I risk trusting the wrong tribute I risk my whole life, my future, my slim chance of being victor. And I want to be victor. I'll always want to be victor, that's all anyone ever wants. It is a greed that hooks itself into your soul like a claw and the more your struggle against it, the deeper it sinks in.

"I'm sorry," I tell Leon and then, before he has a chance to strike, I shoot off to the right, stumbling backward several steps, out of his reach. He misses just barely. For one heart beat, as I'm fleeing, down the alley we'd just broken free of, I wonder if he'd shoot me in the back.

I never get to find out. Leon shouts something behind me, something loud and I hear his voice cracking, but a far distant sound drowns out his utterance. An eerie sound that I can't place and yet sounds familiar in one sense. Then, within the next breath, I'm thrown off my feet, into the alley wall, by an intense roll of energy that seems to come straight out of the concrete. A shudder of the earth. Powerful enough that even Leon, who races up behind me, lurches a bit, before steadying himself.

My blood is hammering in my ears, and all I can think about is that Leon has me in reach, that I have to run now, then think and make inquisitions later. Too late though. Leon grasps me by the arm painfully. I whip around, hissing, furious, frustrated. I feel all the raw emotions inside me clawing to the surface of my mask and, what makes it worse, Leon does not even look at me. No. He looks beyond me, staring off into the distance, over and between the buildings around us in the direction of the mansion. The expression on his face is that equivalent of disbelief and pain and a vague numbness. I turn my head in the same direction, confused, working frantically to put the pieces together.

There. Above the line of the nearest building, snaking between the skyscrapers reaching with silver beams to the heavens, is a sliver of gray smoke, curling against the splotches of blue sky that actually show betwixt the tangle of Capitol buildings within the City Circle. It is a black finger against the skyline, waggling back and forth as if played with in the cold autumn wind, mocking the residences below.

I make a involuntary move toward it, knowing in a sharp, certain way exactly where it rises from. I'm surprised to find Leon's grip on me is slack and his hand falls away from my arm easily. I see his face morph into one of heart wrenching guilt. "What have I done?" I hear him mutter. "What have I... Oh, odds, forgive me."

Suddenly, slowly, the pieces come together. Leon's urgency to get away. The way Plutarch did not hand me the note, but instead, he gave it to Leon, who refused to let me see. The poison in my lunch. Planted by whom? I feel a flare in my chest, recalling the mysterious lavender smelling woman. _Cori?_ Plutarch's bravery. Some underline plot that Plutarch must have created between the Capitol rebels in District 3 and teamed up with them to blackmail Leon into doing this. He had coordinated with Leon to make sure I was out at the time he went through with his revenge, or was it just with a sense of duty? Was it to get back at Snow for the loss of his tongue? His friends? His family? Or just merely because his plot with Heavensbee to rescue me from the arena had failed? A huge, swell of guilt consumes me, abruptly._ I should have told Leon about Peeta, about the other rebels. I should have told Leon and he would have known about Plutarch's plan, too, so that this.. what has just..._

For one moment I stand completely stunned, not by the physical effects of the blast many streets away, but by a sense of loss so powerful it completely overwhelms me. Of betrayal as well. Knocked breathless by the mere, slight mistake. The small slip of attention that has led to this. I should have mentioned _Plutarch_ to _Peeta_, talked to him about the still living Capitol rebel I had close contact with...

I take a step away from Leon, my feet numb, head spinning. All around me I can hear the citizens reemerge from their shops and apartments. Beyond the alley I can see their faces turned toward the sky, witnessing no doubt some tragic happening in Capitol history. What had Plutarch used? Mines, like in my first Hunger Games, when I destroyed the Careers supplies? Some other strange and unknown explosive to me? Without truly knowing it, I reach the street and stumble through the shocked citizens, pushing them aside roughly. But there's too many. I'm not moving fast enough.

"Get out of my way!" I snap, finding my voice, strong. I plow through them now, suddenly moving faster, just barely picking up to a jog when I feel a hand catch my elbow.

It's Leon. He tries to pull me back. Is saying things I don't hear.

"Let me _go_!" I find I've had enough of this tug-a-war. Enough of everything. Effortlessly I fling my arm back and catch the opposite elbow across Leon's face with a satisfying ___crack_. He releases me. I throw myself through two more rows of people, but Leon is stubborn. He wraps his arms around my torso and begins to heavily drag me back into the crowd, away from the mansion, away from the ruined building not five or six streets away, that is compelling me to come to it. To witness. A sense of death, intimate death, the death of someone I loved, tugging at my heart like the sweaty, sticky, insistent hand of that little boy earlier today. "No!" I begin to scream, fighting Leon, uselessly, throwing myself against the arms he has around my waist. "_No_!"

"Katniss," Leon rushes out. He keeps the unbreakable grasp on my torso and twists me around so that I face him. Blood trickles from his nose, that is a bit wobbly in the middle."What's wrong with you? Snow is dead! Why are you going back, they'll only take you–"

"No!" I shout at him, pushing at his chest. I turn my face to gaze over my shoulder, up into the sky. At the only thing I can see of this disaster. This unimaginable ruin. _"Peeta was in there!"_

"That's impossible," says Leon.

"He-" I pause to draw in a sharp breath. Even from this far away I can taste the acrid smoke. My thoughts run in frantic, painful and numb circles. The scent brings me back to the arena. I remember the mines around the Careers supplies again. Is that what Plutarch used? Mines? Planted all around the mansion? Where had Peeta been? Standing next to one? In the basement with floor upon floor over his head? And Finnick? Where was Finnick? Boggs must have been dragged in there after he got shot, if not halfway there, before Plutarch must have determined Leon and I far enough away from the site to pull the trigger after that strange phone call. "They were all in there!" I find myself confessing. "Peeta, Finnick, Boggs, other rebels. They were disguised as Peacekeepers and Avoxes and.. ___what have you done!_"

My anger overrides all other emotions. Leon did this. Plutarch. I should hate them. Instead, all I have to do now, I know, is to go back. I can't leave. Not when there is a chance that some of them may still be alive. That Peeta could be alive right now, trapped underneath piles of rubble. I have to go back. That's what I have to do.

But Leon won't let me. So I do the only conceivable thing I can think of. I'm not nearly as tall or as strong as Leon is, and I'm especially physically weakened by the baby. I'm not helpless, but just not enough. Not physically. "Help!" I suddenly gasp, twisting away from Leon. I can see the shock flit into his eyes. "Someone, please! He's trying to kill me! He's a rebel in disguise!"

The people in the street turn to stare. No one in the Capitol seems to be particularly brave or strong, but cries that echo my call for help seem to distress Leon. They cry out for Peacekeepers. He wraps one arm around my waist, drawing me up against him and in the other hand he raises the gun, spinning around at the citizens that crowd us.

"Help!" I continue to cry.

Something flies out of the crowd and smashes into Leon's shoulder. A purse. Then another thing comes. Food. A hat. Two high heels. Leon whips his head around and tries to swerve to avoid them, but I keep my feet planted, that's something I can do, and he takes a gold watch straight in the face. Leon isn't shooting. He has his gun, but even as the people throw things at him, he's not shooting. ___He won't shoot them__, _I realize, when a man, dressed in a peculiar green suit and with sun-bright orange skin, comes behind Leon and kicks him behind the knee.

Leon whirls around at the man. Doesn't shoot. Won't shoot. In his moment of distraction for the man, I elbow Leon again, but this time, lower. Below the belt. The man's grasp on me loosens as his body caves inward around his center, around the pain. And that's all I needed. I know he won't shoot me in the back as I run away.

I flee down the street as fast as I can, the partially helpful, appalled crowd of Capitolites parting for me as I run. My lungs burn to make up for the effort my heart is putting forth. _When was the last time I ran?_ I can't remember. I stumble twice, nearly twisting my ankle on the turn to the third street. Already I can notice differences the closer I get, following the other people who flock in the same direction. A sharp tang of smoke chokes me. The other people who look about themselves in fear and despair, knocking each other over in the haste to go the opposite way I am.

On the second street, I hear a woman keening. Somewhere a child is crying, and the chatter of the people is like the clicking of the spiders in the arena, rolling in the air, as waves of noise. Clicking, clicking, clicking.

And then I'm there, at the last street, every gasping breath a sharp knife to my throat. One hand braced against a knee, and the other leaned against one of the few buildings that line the street that leads up to the President's mansion in the City Circle.

Or, at least, what used to be a mansion. Which really is only a mountain of rubble, all the disorder spilling out the black gates, some fifty or sixty feet into the roadway. Heavy chunks of white marble are embedded into the sidewalk as I walk toward the mansion. I'm not the only one who cautiously, angrily, and numbly approaches. I'm one of at least ten, who scuttle around the remains and hurry toward the main source of disaster. The smoke rising into the perfectly scorched blue sky transfixes me momentarily. My ability to form words properly is lost, until I pull myself from the haze, and I feel a heavy hand touch my shoulder.

I turn my head to see a Peacekeeper, all dressed in flawless white, a gun in their other hand. For a moment, my eyes don't register them clearly. Their plastic face-cover fractures the image of their face. It is just blurs of pale skin and blue eyes. Then it clears and I notice how short the figure is, and I realize with a start, the blonde hair, the tears rolling down her face. I open my mouth, voice unsurprised, just matter-of-fact. "Madge."

"They said that they were going to do it quietly," she murmurs in reply. Shock is evident in her gentle faced features. Salt droplets slipping across the burned seal of the Capitol on her cheek. "They said that to me.. at noon, they said.. quietly. They got me... they dressed us up and threw us into the newcomer ranks.. they said they wouldn't look at us closely if we were good, if our mouths were shut, that they wouldn't look for the missing prisoners within the Peacekeeper barracks.. they said we would be transferred to Head Quarters for training at dinner time.. and," Madge breaks off, her voice hitched, eyes casting suddenly to the mansion, "we were suppose to scatter. That if we slipped away into the streets, the citizens wouldn't question a Peacekeeper and that if we got back at the mansion a little while after dinner.. they said the hovercraft would be there. For you. But.."

I'm having trouble understanding her. The wavering of her emotional voice makes most of what she says nearly inaudible. I gather that the other plan that Peeta said would be set into motion was already started before Loen and Plutarch and the Capitol rebels interfered. They were only waiting for me to get in my right place. Plutarch made a good mess of that, though. _A huge mess_, I think, turning back to the ruined mansion. Teams were starting to arrive. The doctors and firemen and more Peacekeepers. When someone else flits to my side, I turn, half prepared to attack the Peacekeeper who seeks to take me into custody, but I turn to see that this Peacekeeper is only Cinna dressed in disguise. Like Madge, when I only glance at him, he seemed like any other Peacekeeper. Once I take the time to examine him more, I notice how skinny he is for a Peacekeeper, or his battered face behind the plastic. The fact that their plan worked out fine, up until this moments gives me a bitter tang of irony. Ironic because the plan that the rebels had originally plotted, didn't work in the least. I'm still in the Capitol. The hovercraft hasn't come. Plutarch.. he...

"Johanna," I find myself noting, trying to distract myself from my thoughts. "Where..?"

"She couldn't.." Madge begins, then breaks off.

"Johanna lost it," Cinna finishes. "The moment we were being escorted with the other new recruits from our tour of the mansion, on our way to Head Quarters, just after Madge slipped into an alley to hide, Johanna _snapped_. I think it was the fresh air. The feeling of actually being free, finally got to her and she.. she just tore straight through the ranks and they took her down. I had to slip away when she presented the distraction.. there was nothing I could do to help her. She was using the gun they gave her.. she might of gotten away. Otherwise, she could be.."

"Dead," I finish, heavily. The word somehow dark and harsh, but real. A very blunt observation. "Like Peeta."

"No, Katniss," Madge bursts, clearly she had already been thinking it. "He could have been out. Or–"

"Dead like Finnick and Enorbaria. And Johanna. And Peeta," I say to her, harshly, as if I could sink that into her stupid, pretty little blonde head. "Dead like District Twelve! And your father! And Darius!"

"Katniss!" Cinna says, and he tries to reach at me, to comfort me.

Before he could, a real Peacekeeper has spotted me. The Capitol's Mockingjay. I'm not in my suit, but I'm pregnant, I'm here, I've got short black hair. I shove at both Madge and Cinna. "Go! Before you're dead, too. They won't kill me." Madge looks uncertain, unwilling to let go of my sleeve where she grasps at it. "___Go_!"

The pair scatters at my request, easily slipping into the other spectators, bounding down the endless and confusing streets of the Capitol, where it is unlikely they will be found very quickly, considering how low they are on the priority list.

Mentally, I prepare myself to turn around. To face this Peacekeeper that has spotted me and the next one and the next. I could have taken the chance and ran with Madge and Cinna, somehow try to find Leon so that we could escape still. Except I couldn't get myself to leave this place. So near Peeta, who, though I know I should accept is dead, I won't leave. Not until I know for sure. I owed him this much, at least, to stay and see the outcome.. then the sound of the Peacekeeper's boots crunching against broken glass, causes me to turn around just in time to catch the butt of his gun in the temple. Efficiently knocking me out. The Peacekeeper's arms flying out to catch me just in time as the black encroaches on my mind and my legs turn into water underneath me.

My last thoughts are of a forgotten promise.


	12. Chapter Twelve

_**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

A/N: Just moving things along. I promise there are points to everything I'm doing, I'm not just throwing the drama in there for fun. (Though, I admit reading your reviews make me enjoy doing it.) In this chapter the choice is yours to decide which side you take, whether you believe or not. Just imagine a sign hanging in the background of that scene flashing neon letters of - _the choice is yours_. Thank you for reading. Sorry for typos. Reviews are love. -Taryn(:

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Chapter Twelve

I come to slowly. I fight against waking because the pain is so bad. It isn't like the hurt of my aching and exhausted muscles. In some measure I've grown accustomed to those pains and I've inured myself against their throbbing, but mentally there is the weight of tons of rubble on my chest, crushing my mind, and it is so different, so _final, _that I don't think I can stand it for long. This wasn't something I had to endure in the Games, or in the chamber where they tortured my friends. It's inside me, this great keening of loneliness, hopelessness, and despair. This is not something that I can endure until it's forgotten, this is something I'll need to endure until someone physically came along and pulled the weight of the pain off of me.

And all I can think about is the way Peeta begged me to fight this off. This soul sucking depression, consisting of unfeeling nerves, where the actual need to surface out of its oppression is nonexistence and could take many hours, maybe even days to overcome. I start to sob, then stop the instant the rucking of my chest causes such distress on my body I nearly faint out of reality once more.

I can remember the last time I was awake, standing before the ruined mansion.. and that feels like a very long time ago. Slowly, I come into focus of my surroundings and I know I'm laying on a hospital cot. I open my eyes and blink in the light that is as sharp as a claw. Instantly I turn away and bury my face amongst the pillows and stay there, in the dark, thinking. Each breath is a rasp in my throat and my every muscle aches. I'm exhausted, too tired to even get up.

_And what would I do if I got up? Who is waiting outside of this room to greet me?_

On the bright side I'm not strapped down. There are no needles in my arm or catheter on my thigh. I can't have been out for too long, not three months and that is in of itself a relief. I try to force myself to open my eyes and take note to my surroundings; am I in the Capitol? District 13? District 3? Honestly, I have no idea, for the Peacekeeper who knocked me out could have been for either one of them. He could have been a usual Capitolite, or a rebel of District 13, or a friend to Leon. Loyalties these days are hard to determine, especially if they're wearing those obnoxiously white uniforms.

When I finally do gather up my strength to sit up, I cry out initially at the sharp, burning pain in my abdomen. I look down hurriedly, the child stirring (_how could have I forgotten?) _to the surface of my worries. I've become so used to it always being present. If I'm fine, I've always assumed it's fine. Never too far away, my little ally, because unlike Rue she's unable to get out of my grasp. Aside that, whenever I've been tormented in the Capitol I've never worried about it because they couldn't harm it and would always heal it, since a dead baby is never good blackmail. So I can't explain the shock and turmoil that strikes me when I look down to find that my stomach's not so taunt as it once was, it is more flaccid, empty..

I throw aside the blankets in panic, ignoring the pain in my arm or the individual sears in my stomach as if someone is stabbing me repeatedly in different spots. Pulling aside the hospital shirt, I find that across the bottom and up the middle of my noticeably smaller abdomen is a layer of bandages. I tear them off of me, to reveal a pink, scarcely covered, ugly and jagged lesion. I trace the length of it with my fingers, wincing at the pain. Empty. I feel hollow for a moment, then I think, _she was early_.

Is she okay? Healthy? Here? Somewhere near? How could have I missed out on the birth of my own child? _Peeta missed it, too. And Prim._ An ache arises in my chest, for both of them. Though sitting up is agony, when I throw my legs over the edge of the cot and try to stand, my head whirls with the splitting pain that runs along the extent of my scar and straight through my upper torso like teeth of ice sinking and tearing into my nerves. I'm forced to lay back down, drawing in long breaths through my clenched teeth.

I can hear someone outside the room, now. Immediately, as soon as the door opens, I ask, "Where is she? Can I have her?" Again, I try to stir myself into the sitting position and even that little movement hurt my stomach. While I'm struggling with my body, I finally find the time to glance up at the figure in the doorway and I'm stunted at the sight of whom it is. "Haymitch?"

_Does that mean I'm in District 13? _"It's been six months and that's all you can muster up for me? Your favorite mentor? Just a '_Haymitch?'" _The old man tosses his hands up slightly and then slinks across the room toward me.

"You're my only mentor," I wheeze, and lower myself onto my back against the cot.

"Got me there, sweetheart," says Haymitch, then he overlooks me. "You look awful."

"So do you." And really, he does. He's paler than I remember him to be and his eyes are horribly blood-shot. His face is thinner, and shadowed with a slight, dark blonde beard. Something else in his face makes him just look wretched. "Where am I?"

"Safe," says Haymitch and he sinks to the edge of my cot to sit. He seems to think about something as his eyes scatter across the blankets, then he lifts his gaze to my face. "Let's go for a walk."

"I don't think I'm ready for that."

"No, the doctors said that the more you move the more the wound heals. It's only going to heal wrong if you're laying down and not moving. You've been laying here for two days already, so there's going to be pain, embrace it." Haymitch stands once more and offers me an arm.

I don't want to, but I force myself to my legs anyway. I'm grateful for the arm Haymitch offers, even if it reminds me of the Capitol and of Leon and that awful mess of a rescue mission. Most of my weight it careening into his side as we stagger our slow way to the door. I grasp the frame of it once we reach it and already, I feel as though invisible ropes are tied around my knees, pulling them to my chest, willing me to collapse. I grit my teeth. "Where are we walking?"

"Not far, just to the room next to yours. I think someone will be glad to see you there."

I try to decipher who by the look in my old mentor's eyes, but he is as blank and unemotional as always. Turns out that even the small distance from my room to the one right next to it, is a lot harder than Haymitch declined to exaggerate. I tell myself to embrace the burning and the aching; it's going to heal me in the long run.

When we finally do reach the other doorway, which takes a ridiculous amount of time in my perspective, I scan the length of the small room quickly. There's a cot in the middle of it and someone there is buried underneath the blankets. Unlike me, they are connected to a needle and a machine that sings and hums annoyingly. I can't see whom it is from where I am, and since they're mostly covered there's nothing about them I can distinguish with. Haymitch continues to lead me forward, however, so I limp after, sights set out for the chair directly next to the cot.

I'm so focused on getting relief for my pain, as I lower myself into the seat, that I don't notice Haymitch walk around to the other side of the cot and throw back the blankets. Not until a groan issues forth from the person that had been beneath them and they wheeze, "The light... hurts. I want.. those... back."

I know Haymitch must be watching this, measuring my reaction, possibly enjoying it, and not even that protrudes on me. I let the emotions twist into my expression all they want as the relief rushes through me. All of a sudden my heart is beating fast, not from exertion, but glee. Despite the splinter of pain it causes I lurch forward and grasp this person by the arm with my hand, unwilling to let go. "Peeta," I breathe.

He turns his head weakly, and his eyelids are heavy. Peeta sees me, though. His eyes at first are clouded with pain, but at the sight of me they clear some, softening from the crisp blue into a soft azure. "Hi."

"Hi," I reply, quick. I look to Haymitch for some sort of explanation. He stands on Peeta's other side with his arms crossed over his chest, observing his tributes like he always has; with some distant disapprove, and amusement, and pity. "How.." I begin to ask, then Peeta wheezes something that I missed and I refocus on him.

He wasn't talking to me. "Have they told her?" he demands of Haymitch. I'm surprised to note anger in his voice. I feel underneath my hand, the muscles in his bicep tighten and tense. "I won't."

"Tell me what?"

"She just woke up, I thought it'd be nice if we waited a little while," Haymitch shrugged, seeming indifferent. "If you think.."

Peeta makes a snarling, growling sound so unlike him that I snap my face back to look at his. "Out!" he rasped, loudly, but not really shouting. Each breath to him seemed like agony as he drew them in. I note all the bandages and braces about his shoulders and chest and wonder what happened to him the day of the rescue mission. "I can't.."

"Peeta," I try to placate, if only because I'm bewildered as to why he would kick Haymitch out of the room. The hand I have on his arm squeezes, trying to get through to him, but he does not even acknowledge me; he has eyes for no one but Haymitch.. eyes that gleam pained and furious and.. something else. "Peeta." This time I shake his arm slightly and he throws his head back in pain, a groan ripping its way up his throat. My hand flies away from him. "I'm sorry," I hiss, wincing at the pain of my own movement.

At least I have his attention now. "I have a broken collarbone," he tells me, as if to apologize for his outburst of noise. "And my right lung collapsed, so it's hard to breathe. I can't remember what happened to my right shoulder, something like breaking but not that word. The doctors say I'll be as good as new in a few weeks, probably." All of this he confesses quickly, breathlessly, and then he swings his head around again to glare at Haymitch. "There," Peeta says. "I told her my bit. I won't tell her the other."

I narrow my eyes at the two men in the room with me. What are they not telling me? After everything the three of us have been through, I'd have thought they wouldn't hesitate to let me in on any certain secret or knowledge. At the thought I remember I should hate Haymitch for betraying me in the arena, but that was so long ago, and so passed my worries, I don't linger on it. Instead, I linger on the times he spent coaching me, or helping me and Peeta.

Does he remember all that, too? I stare at him with hard eyes until he gives an exaggerated, uneasy sigh. His eyes stray to Peeta. "Are you sure.."

"She has a right to know."

Haymitch nods. I feel relieved that they're going to share with me, despite both of their obvious reluctance. The worry about what it might be, doesn't occur to me until I glance at Peeta and realize he's now staring intently into my face, gauging me. Those bright crystalline blue eyes nudging at my soul.

Before I can ask what's the matter, Peeta says, "Come here."

"What?" I ask, confused, but leaning closer anyway. My stomach sends tight pains into my chest, and yet, I know it'd be worse pain for Peeta to have to lean upward. Immediately as I think it, Peeta gives a small movement anyway, to capture my lips with his. A kiss. At first I think it's not the time, but as his mouth moves against mine, I find my body flooding with all my desire for him, all my relief once more at the forefront of my mind. Peeta pulls me down into a strong and fierce kiss that I've never felt him give me before.

Not that don't like it. In fact, it is so new, yet so like those kisses in my distant dream it leaves me hungry for more, and when I force myself to break away, Peeta makes a noise of displeasure. Beside the hunger, one, small fear in me rises. Worried, because desperation taints the kiss.

I push myself away from Peeta's face. I stare at him, wondering, trying to gauge the look in his eyes. Those same eyes that flicker to Haymitch, then to my stomach. My heart lurches. "Have you seen her?" I whisper. "Will she be okay?"

Haymitch's brow creases. He doesn't know what I'm talking about. Peeta does. He knows exactly who I'm talking about. Peeta shakes his head. Haymitch says something, warns him to shut his trap. Ignoring him, Peeta says, "Not her, Katniss. Him." I open my mouth, and Peeta actually makes a move with his hand, at first I think he's reaching for me, but his hand diverts toward the bedside table next to us. I can see it's paining him to move at all. When his hand retreats, he's got something in it and he feebly tosses the object into my lap.

It's a white rose. The sickly scent hits me first, making my stomach curdle around itself, and my eyes fly to Peeta in confusion and upset. Thoughts of Snow come to me, as does the lingering smell of blood that's always on his breath. A uneasy feeling arises because why would they give me something they know would remind me of Snow?

Cautiously I pluck the flower from my lap. I look to Haymitch, but he's looking away. My eyes go to Peeta to see his are closed, as he draws in slow, painful breaths. "What... is this?"

"The card," Peeta wheezes.

Attached to the rose's throned stem in a small, neatly folded blue card that I had not made note to. Fingers trembling, I turn it aside, revealing the finely written words in red ink. _Congratulations. It's a boy. - Snow_

I clap a hand over my mouth to hold back a surprised sound. Peeta and Haymitch say nothing. They already know. They've known for two days, while I lay in a bed unknowing. I sit there for several minutes, trying to understand. How did this happen? How does Snow have my child? The last thing I knew, I had my own child, inside me, safe. It was Peeta I feared losing then, but now I have him and my baby is somewhere not with me. How did Peeta get away from the mansion? How is Snow alive, too?

"How.."

"There's a long tale," Haymitch says. "And I don't even know all of it."

Peeta should know. "What happened the day of the rescue?"

He still isn't looking at anything. "I'm sorry," he whispers, "I'm sorry it didn't work."

"I don't blame you. It was those Capitolite rebels in District Three. Leon and Plutarch.." I break off as the memories infiltrate my thoughts. I remember Plutarch handing Leon the note. I recall Leon shooting Boggs. Poison healed by a woman who smelled of lavender. The ruin of the mansion, just one big pile of rubble. Madge and Cinna fleeing. "What happened?"

"Someone.. there was a last minute evacuation," Peeta says. "Somehow they found out about the explosives, I don't know how, but I remember seeing my Head Peacekeeper talking to this woman.. she told Snow.. about the Capitolite rebel's plan. He got away in a hovercraft, before the explosives even went off. Me and my squad were just leaving the mansion through the back when Plutarch pulled the trigger. It was.. too late, though. Snow got away. You weren't there.. and being so close to the accident," he indicates with his chin toward his ravaged upper body.

I think about the phone call Leon got just before Plutarch blew up the mansion. "I thought you were taken away with Snow," Peeta continues. "When the doctors took me, I was thrown into the hospital, but they soon found out about my phony papers. Finnick, too. He was evacuated with the rest of us, or.. at least, those who were out the thresh-hold before the mansion crumbled."

"Is he..?" I break in.

"In a room not far from mine?" Peeta retorted with a slight twitch of his lips. He nods. "He'll live."

"Then tell me the rest." I have to know how I could possibly let the baby slip through my fingers, how I'm sitting here right now with Peeta.

"Snow.. has relocated to the Training Center, since his home.. was lost," Peeta winces a few times through that statement as he repositioned his body against the cot. This way he is looking me straight in the face, his hand hanging over the edge of the blankets and I snake mine into it, timidly, my eyes cast to our fingers as he interweaves them. "Finnick and I and the other District Thirteen rebels were taken to him there. I-" he breaks off, looks to Haymitch. "_They_ think you were there, too."

"Not you?"

"Well we don't know for sure where you were between the moment we got you and when you were in the Capitol. I thought you were either dead inside the mansion or with the rebels the whole time I spent in that hospital as the Capitol doctors worked on me. It felt like our first Hunger Games all over again as I laid in the bed and they told me they were waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

"For the entreat. A surrender, something," Peeta explains. "The Capitol thought they were under attack because someone blew up the president's mansion. Afterward, they thought they won because they had _both_ of us, Katniss. Snow had me and you."

"Then why did he let me go?" I object. "Snow wouldn't hand me over to the rebels.."

"No," Peeta says. "He wouldn't. Which is why everyone else is wrong. President Snow had only Finnick and I and smaller people who he didn't care for. All he wanted was you, Katniss. Everyone knows that. Without you he can't keep the rebels of District Thirteen tamed or enlighten his people with the Capitol's Mockingjay. He'd lose the upper hand in this war. So why would he give you up? _He wouldn't."_

Haymitch speaks up for the first time. "The Capitol had to have Katniss, because we didn't and the rebels in District Three admitted to not having her either."

"Then why did he let her go?" Peeta demands hotly. "If he had Katniss, why is it that he has only my son now? I know that you people made a deal with him! Don't try to deny it, I was handed over to District Thirteen without struggle, so why was that?"

"It's not.." Haymitch begins exasperatedly and with irritation. I sense he's had this conversation with Peeta many times before.

"You made a deal with them, didn't you?" Peeta snarls. He's the same furiousness as he was when Haymitch and I first walked in. I see he's straining against his bandages and braces, despite the agony it must be for him. Even Haymitch looks concerned for one space of a heartbeat, and I notice the glint of pain behind his eyes, before they harden in the face of Peeta's anger. "You had Katniss safe and Snow had me and you traded the baby for me, didn't you? You gave him my son." He throws a scathing look at the rose that I had replaced to the bedside table. "You made that just to cover your tracks."

I'm taken aback by this accusation. _Was it true? _I search both men's faces and while Peeta appears angry, I can see underneath him an ocean of guilt and blame. _He's going to blame himself for this._ He thinks the reason Snow has our child is because the rebels traded them out. Would they do that because they thought Peeta would be something stronger to have? Someone who could speak? So they could have the star-crossed lovers of District 12 at the head of this war, instead of me alone with a baby? _Would they do that?_

Haymitch's face reveals nothing. Would he tell us if he knew? Did he have a say in it? Was he the one who suggested selling my child, my helpless infantile son, who had no mother or father to defend him, to President Snow in exchange for Peeta? I realize I don't know. I don't know what any of the rebels in District 13 would do. Suddenly, I feel like Leon, trapped, uncertain. I thought I knew Haymitch, that I could trust him, but now I don't even know him enough to know if he would do this. Is this what Leon thought about when the Capitolite rebels in District 3 threatened his son's life against him?

And then, how could I doubt it? Peeta seems so certain they've done it. Maybe he disliked and distrusted District 13 even more than he let on for those few days we spent together in the shower room. I'm not close to District 13, in any way. I know nothing about them, really, so they could do this, or not. What rebel group I do know, is the Capitol rebels, who were willing to hold a three year old as a hostage. They would hand my baby to the grasps of the Capitol without thinking, if they thought they would gain from it.

But where am I? "Where are we?" I suddenly interrupt Peeta and Haymitch's staring match. "What district is this?" I look about myself, but a hospital room is a hospital room and so I can't decide where we are myself. Still, this movement causes my aching muscles pain and I try to sit hunched, to minimize my pain so as to keep my head fluent and clear.

"District Three," Haymitch answers. "We were waiting for the lot of you guys to heal a little before we transferred you to District Thirteen."

My heart sinks inside my chest. "Why are we here?"

"We needed to station ourselves closer to the Capitol to collect you when Snow handed you back to us."

"He just.. handed us back?" I say, and the suspicions inside me strengthen so unbearably true that I feel hurt and angered at the same time. Peeta's right. There's no way Snow would have handed me back to the rebels, only after extracting my baby. He wouldn't just go through the trouble of finding me and Peeta after the destruction of his mansion, rip my baby from out of me, and then meekly hand us back, broken. "That's not even.."

"I know, it's suspicious. We thought all about lies and ambushes when he told us where we could retrieve you, but he wasn't lying. All of the rebels that were in the Capitol, either dead in a bag or alive and hooked up to machines, have been given back to us." His eyes go to the white rose on the table, he flicks a wrist toward it. "That was tucked behind your ear when we got you."

Peeta shakes his head, wordlessly upset. He doesn't believe any of it, and I find, neither do I. But how can we know for sure? None of us were awake during this exchange. Maybe the rebels had me the whole time and cut out my baby and at the exchange someone put my son in the arms of President Snow and Snow smiled, then handed back the remnants of Peeta and Finnick and the others. The rebels are only telling us that Snow took my baby from me on his own just to keep us loyal to them. So we can blame our loss on President Snow and the Capitol, and that way we are even better as their publicized leaders of this war.

The hand I have in Peeta's tightens its grip. "Out," I say, coldly.

Haymitch rebukes slightly. "Katniss, Peeta is high on morphine, you can't be taking what he says seriously. I was there. I saw it all with my own eyes as President Coin was introduced to Violet Dane, Heavensbee daughter and leader of the rebels in District Three. They were both confused when Snow sent the message for us to retrieve the two of you. I was present at the spot where the Capitol hovercraft placed you and the others. Why would I lie to you?"

"Because you lied to me before and you didn't have any problem with it," I snap.

"That was for your own goo–"

"Was it?" I ask. "I put up with you putting me and my thoughts, like of District Thirteen and of a rebellion, down everyday before the Quarter Quell. Then when you finally showed a little promise and told me you would help me protect Peeta, it was all a lie. That whole conversation was _nothing_. You were just using me and Peeta. We were your pieces in this stupid game and you didn't even win. I'm almost glad that the Capitol got me after the arena, just because it meant you fucked up. Now you're going to stand here and tell me President Snow_ handed me peacefully back to the rebels, no fingers lifted, _after he'd been holding me for six months? You're going to call me and Peeta crazy because we don't believe that lie?" I shake my head in disgust and wince at the pain in my body. All the pain inside my chest, knowing that my son is somewhere far, far away and I failed him in the worst way. "Out. Get out of my sight. I can't look at you," _all I want to do is throw myself at you and claw your eyes out._

Haymitch makes an exasperated and irritated sound, the same he did with Peeta, and then stomps his way out of the hospital room. I don't flinch at the slam of the door. No. All I can think about is what President Snow and that Capitolite doctor told me. _Without the Capitol, your child won't get far._ No, my son hasn't gone far. He's already been submitted to unnecessary mistreatment because of who he is, because he's my son. I've already failed him. I have already failed at being a mother, even before he was two days old.

Even now, I can see President Snow laughing in spite of me, outraged that people have destroyed his mansion for me, as he stands, cradling what he's always wanted, whispering with his snake-bred tongue into its ears. Waiting to use it as blackmail, to bend me to his will, as he is gleeful, because he knows the rebels have betrayed me with it. What he and I know, that the rebels don't is that he doesn't need Peeta, or Finnick, or the other rebels. He has my son. He has me.

I feel nausea suddenly overwhelming me, and the severe pain of the lesion in my stomach is more than just physical as I lift my shirt aside with my free hand and gaze at the blemish that marks me. A scar that will forever represent my loss, failure and the betrayal of my rebel allies.

I can hear screaming, and I realize it is just the remembrance of that dream, as I lay in bed, and my son screams his lungs out, trying to beg me to come save him. Save him from the hands of my deceitful allies. And I, I, _I_, did nothing. Guilt seizes my body like icy talons. I try to rationalize myself, calm myself, so I use a technique that the doctors suggested months ago. I start with the simplest things I know to be true and work toward the more complicated. The list begins to roll in my head... _I'm in District Three. President Snow's mansion is in ruins. The rebels say Snow handed me back to them without word, keeping only my son. Peeta says they traded my son up for the chance to regain all the rebel war prisoners being held by the Capitol. _And finally, either way, _my child, my son, Peeta's son, is still in the Capitol._

Stolen from me, taken from inside me, ripped out of my body. My breath comes in tight, so I force myself to sit straighter, but that only causes my stomach more pain, reminds me of my loss. But it's such a suffocating pain and I can't breathe and all I can think about is the mines falling on top of my father. My father calling my name over and over, until it is just one long cry, just like the cry of my son. One single, heartbreaking wail echoing inside my head until all I can do is gasp for air. I'm standing, abruptly, ripping at my clothes, suffocated, tearing them away from my body, fighting with the fabric as I stumble and sink to the floor in my fit to get them off.

Peeta is speaking from the bed. When I finally rip the shirt savagely off over my head, a hand falls to my abdomen. The scar there is still raw and redder than when I first removed the bandages. It is a thick scar, with neat stitches, where I can feel my pulse flying underneath it with rhythmic, painful throbs. I trace it with shaking fingers, then press my palm into the skin, feeling the heat of the lesion burn a constellation into my hand.

So empty. I trace the scar again and I can feel its uneven texture sliding beneath my skin. It's dirty. All I can see is someone, personally spiteful of me, with a crooked frown and long, spidery fingers as they take the child, _my son, _from inside me, prepared to hand him over to the worst man imaginable. It makes me sick physically, the pain of every shift and touch of the wound sinking me further into the tile floor, as my skin crawls with disgust and I watch gooseflesh rise across my forearms. Aside from the undergarments I wear and my pants, I am half naked, kneeling beside the cot, staring at my scar. That is screaming at me the absence of my child. The one I spent months protecting while trapped inside the Capitol. The one I spared my own life for when all I had wanted was to kill myself. The one I loved so much, _cherished _so fully, that I could not even bear to think of him as more than 'it' or as a parasite, because I knew this would happen. I _knew_. And now he's gone, and I've failed. Not only have I failed, but I failed at something I had thought was such a simple thing, being a mother.. and that's what hurt the most.

Peeta eventually somehow, overcomes his own physical pain to reach at me on the floor. "Come 'ere," he keeps muttering, his fingers extended toward me in appeal as he hunches over the cot's edge. "Come 'ere, please." _Please, Katniss._ I can understand that look in his eyes now, those emotions I couldn't decipher behind his rage, I can feel the same thing now; desperation, fear, sorrow, need.

I recall his kiss, keening for comfort, and slowly I untangle my limbs, exhausted, and I pull myself to the cot. I allow Peeta to grasp me by the arm and pull me into the blankets with him, burrowing underneath them, away from the painfully bright lights, the lies our allies tell us. I rest my chin on his chest and curl up into his side, my arms winding around his lower torso, as to avoid his upper body wounds. He's so much warmer than the floor. One of his hands brushes the hair from my forehead as he catches his breath from the exertion it had been to reach at me.

"I'm so sorry," he whispers.

I close my eyes. I will away the tears, I'm tired of crying, no more crying. "He was your son, too, Peeta," I breathe in response. ".. I'm sorry, too.." _You expected me to protect our baby, didn't you? You feel guilt because you think the rebels traded him up to get you back and I feel it because I laid there and was unable to stop it from happening._

"Katniss," Peeta says, and I can hear his voice catching. I turn my head and it falls limp against the bed next to his chest, eyes straying upwards to the ceiling. "Katniss..." he tries again. There is a question in his tone, that he just can't seem to get out. I know what he wants to ask.

"I'm fine," I whisper. "I'll be fine." The arms I have wrapped around him tighten their hold, to reassure him, to reassure myself. I'm still alive. Peeta's still alive. Our son is still alive, for now. There's still things we can do.

In response, Peeta gives a sort of hiss, or choke, and his warm hand presses into my cheek. "Will _we_ be?" he asks. _Will I blame him? Or will you blame me? _I can hear him conveying. And I don't know about him, but I only have the heart for one enemy to fight, all my hatred balled into a tight, overwhelming ball of anger, directed at who matters, just as Cinna advised. There's really only one enemy: the Capitol. It's them that have our son, no matter who gave him to them. That's who I've been itching to murder all these six months.

"We'll do what we always do," I say. We'll get up and try again. We will do everything we can despite the odds not being in our favor. Him and I will approach this as we always approach things, as one.

We'll _survive_.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

_**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

_A/N: Long, long chapter. I've been debating with myself over a few things for this story. I've heard many of you mention 'loose-ends' but really there are only three major ones that need to be tied off to finish this story; the war, the baby, and the Marchs. However, despite your urge for me to hurry things along, I've decided to continue on my current path. This chapter is sort of a pause in all the action you've been receiving. A chapter where Katniss gathers her head, and where a reader can content themselves over all the information I have to share. I hope she isn't OCC this chapter. (Or at least, anymore OCC than usual.) Don't worry about loose-ends I have everything planned out. All three of the major loose ends are tangled together. And I'll be working at the smaller loose-ends while I tie together the three, or more like unravel them, to Katniss' knowledge. Anyhow, thank you for reading, sorry for typos, and reviews mean faster updates. -Taryn(:_

**_Note to those disappointed with this chapter: there would be no smut if not for the added on sadness/loss. I don't think either of them would have been able to act as such without thinking about what happened the last time. They'd be too guarded against it. That is why I added the last part. I know there's lack of movement in this chapter, but I decided to cut off the funeral piece of this chapter, to save it for the next._**

* * *

Chapter Thirteen

There are two different parts of District 3. One half of the district is whole. This is where all the rebels hole up, in the back ring of buildings that hug close to the electric gate, in old, cob-webbed warehouses and abandoned laboratories. This is the place where you can see District 13 soldiers, stoic and stiff, lined up on walls or standing at doorways, watching everyone around them skittishly. The untouched side of District 3 is where the remaining citizens of the original district live, relishing in their new found freedom, or eager to the cause. Even the children can be found running about, inside or outside, playing those silly and morbid games called Careers and Crowns, and, _don't jump on the cracks or the reapings will snatch._

The _other_ half of District 3 is but only a ashy mass of ruin. People have started to call that part of District 3 the "Scar". To them, to the people of District 3 and the Capitolite rebels, that name means victory. They earned that scar with their success. They fought on that stretch of land dripping sweat and blood and determination, when they forced the Peacekeepers out of their midst. The fact that they lost many vital pieces of the district in the process and much of the population died upon it does not perturb them in the least.

Their life goes on. The world is still spinning. And there is a war to fight.

But there is a stillness in District 3 that makes me unable to believe such a thing, and I hate it greatly, because of the restlessness it makes me feel. Peeta says I'd hate District 13 more, because it is underground, and I can't help but agree to that claim. However, that doesn't mean I won't complain about the damp, rainy climate of District 3.

It is easy to see why they call the lost half of the district the Scar because of their green climate. Stark against the lush, flourished landscape of its surroundings the burned down, black sooted, muddy laned piece of District 3 looks like a jagged, sloppy, crater of earth that was haphazardly pried from the world; like the way Head Peacekeeper Brock scrapped Mayor Undersee's eyes from their sockets with a knife. Just a lost piece of history that will soon be rebuilt over and forgotten; the only thing that will come to mind when people think of it is _the Scar_, telling them of their victory, and their sacrifice.

_Sacrifice_. I hate that word. In my head I can hear them, telling me about my great sacrifice, the war's worst sacrifice. The fact that they consider these past six months just a sacrifice of time infuriates me. The baby, my baby, it's a loss, but it's also a _sacrifice_. All in all, what's a baby compared to everyone else who died in District 12? There are sacrifices to every war, they know, I know, but they will not admit to me that they had me and traded my son to President Snow in exchange for the war prisoners held by the Capitol. They all, every single one of them, stick to the claim that Snow handed us over peacefully, only the baby unaccounted for. Some feel bad about it and try to sympathize, whereas others openly tell me that it was for the best, because all things considered what's one infant compared to the amount of people we got back?

When Haymitch said that the others were returned with me and Peeta, whether alive, or injured, or indeed, in a body bag, they were. Cinna and Madge? Turned over to us, unharmed. Leon? He was given over, harried and possessing only a broken nose, but it had been me who inflicted those things unto him. Mrs. and Mr. Undersee? They came in the same body bag, the same way we received Darius and the Avox girl, whose name turned out to be Lavinia, though there were so many pieces of her that they decided just to burn her and put her ashes in a box. Johanna, though unrecognizable and with a condition that the scientists call "hi-jacked" she has been returned, covered in a bath of blood that was not her own. We got back Plutarch's body, Heavensbee's coffin for his daughter, Boggs (just scarcely alive)... and perplexedly, Mr. March, the strange man whose murder I was somehow the cause of, he came with a note on his body bag, in the same red ink as on the rose's card, asking us to bury the body in District 10 (which both receiving him and the note is bewildering and unexplainable).

It seemed everyone who had been trapped in the Capitol got out... everyone but my son.

Three days has passed since I've woken up, which means my baby is now five days old. He's two days away from being a week. Is he healthy? Is there someone taking care of him? Does Snow meet his every need? _What strange woman is breast feeding him?_ I can't help thinking that late at night, and I ache, knowing that I should be doing that, because everyday my breasts weep or grow chapped, and I know my body expected me to have my baby, just as much as my mind had.

It seems my body still thinks I'm a mother, when I'm not. Only my heart knows I've failed. My body is aweary, not mine, and yet I force myself to be me, as though I've got the act down to an art. It seems the only time I am not putting on a mask or throwing up walls of charade, is when I'm alone with Peeta.

When President Coin and Violet Dane appeared in my room the day after I awoke, since I'd been bed ridden per doctor's orders, they introduced themselves and I found myself retreating, unintentionally and unnecessarily into the Capitol's Mockingjay facet. I put on a placid face, instinctively, because like a dog, I'd been trained to do so or I'd be shocked around my neck. I told them hissing words through my teeth, only halfheartedly throwing my threats and brush offs at them, while I listened angrily to the apologizes Violet had to say on behalf to the rescue mission, the Quarter Quell failure of her father's, and my son. President Coin had much less to say, only that she expected much work from me in the case of being the rebel's Mockingjay and that I recover as quickly as possible.

I told them that I was not leaving or doing anything until Peeta was better. Just the first of probably many conditions I'll put down. It makes me wonder about the conditions I made with Snow. Are those still standing? The very thought is amusing if not preposterous. There's a reason he has my son, whether it is because he took it by his own means or the rebels gave it to him, and that reason is because I have betrayed our deal. My _first_ condition to Snow had been that I would get to keep my son, that I was promised my son, and now that I have broken our contract, he's taken the most delectable piece of revenge as he could.

I don't get direct information about the war, rather I leech it out of the others, so that I do not have to talk to anyone official or to Haymitch. The best information usually comes from Boggs, who is four doors down from my make-shift hospital room, within the warehouse that they keep us. The room straight across from mine is Cinna's and he doesn't know much, but he's always comforting company. Being able to sit with him and know that I'd helped him escape death and the Capitol is a relief. Madge is next to Cinna's room, across from Peeta's, and on her other side is Johanna. Johanna's door is almost always locked and if not she's usually strapped to her hospital cot. I've only been allowed one glimpse of the insane woman when I'd been slinking from my room to Peeta's late the second day.

Fortunately I'm not the only one who staggers my way, room to room. Often Madge goes to my room to visit me, or to find me in Peeta's. She gets lonely, she explains–the white walls remind her of the cell and it's too easy to imagine she's still trapped and she just has to see other people to reassure herself. Annie, too, is found ghosting about the warehouse, her destination always Finnick's room. She'd been flown out here at Finnick's heavy instance, and then Peeta backing him up on it, just because it seems Lover Boy and Pretty Boy are close pals now. I spoke with her only briefly, as I peeked in on Finnick, and he introduced her to me as his wife.

All in all, within the confines of only one, simple hallway are all those rescued from the Capitol. Even Leon is on the far end, often laying there emotionlessly or sitting with his son. He does not seem to care about much other than the smile on his son's face and giving his wife cold, unforgiving and loathsome stares whenever she dares to come about.

The only people who are missing from my reach are but four; Prim, my son, Mother, and Gale.

Boggs tells me the details of the war all in one hour on the second day I am awake: the Capitol is cryptically silent since the rescue mission, aside the one thing they did, by handing back all the war prisoners; District 10 is still holding up against District 13, despite their greatest efforts, and as a result the rebels have moved on to District 7, conquered it, and are currently cutting back the ranks of Peacekeepers in District 6; District 13 is not despairing or weakening in any way, but instead, they are bettering themselves by their newfound (or more accurately, _renewed_,) alliance with the Capitolite rebels in District 3. In fact, there's no bad way to slice it if you're Boggs or President Coin or Violet Dane, they've got everything they need. Me. Their Mockingjay. The only thing that needs to happen to end this war is finish tackling all the districts, then the Capitol and that's it. Capitol gone. War won.

I would like nothing more than to take a bow and a sheathe of arrows and pluck through the districts with a vengeance, but how can I when I know every move I make is a potential harm I do unto my son? _I'm stuck, so stuck. _It's as though I've never left the Capitol. Snow still controls me, as though he hovers above me, pulling the strings that control my every move, my every word, my every expression. I'm his puppet, his Mockingjay, not the rebels.

And no one seems to see that. They seem to think I'll be ready to burn the Capitol back, no matter the limits I must push. As though they are ignorant to the fact that _just maybe_, I love my baby. Am I really that cold and calculating? Do they all think me just so unfeeling? Nothing they treat me with implies I am motivated by a kind or soft passion. No. They expect me to burn things. Destroy everything I can get my hands on. They want angry Katniss. Snow tried his best to tame that Katniss when she attempted to jump from a window and slash up the face of a woman I did not know. President Snow had a objective all along while he roped me in the skills of lying and smiling. _Not just so I looked good as the Capitol's Mockingjay, but because he wanted to subdued me in the best way that would help him. _If motherhood hasn't soften me, it was the torture or the lessons or just.. me distancing myself from the war, from the loss, from the Hunger Games.

I don't want to be soft. I know I chose Peeta because I think I can't survive without him. That decision was made not by the baby, not love, or desire, or even compatibility. Why can't this decision be similar? Is there really even a decision? No one has asked me if I want to the be rebel's Mockingjay. _Do I want to be? Can I really do that? Will it only become another mask or can I do this as Katniss.. who is Katniss? _Sometimes it seems like only Peeta knows, not even myself and I resent him a little for that, for him to be so sure... and yet, sometimes I see his broken cracks, running through him like tiny rivulets. Cracks in the mortar of a solid wall. I see it when he shouts at a doctor with his easily lost temper (a recent development) or when I catch him staring out the window, out at the world and he is unable to explain what he's thinking about.

It's the morning of the third day and I have no time or energy to nurse my wounds. The past two nights I'd spent in Peeta's bed with him, but this time I wake to my own cot, having been moved by the doctors. I'm irritated by that fact. This bed is cold and lonely, and I find my head whirling with the nightmares I have just broken free of. I try to recollect my pieces as I force myself into the sitting position, gritting my teeth against the pain my stomach still causes me. All the pieces seem to be scattered around me and I have to pick them up, examine them one by one and exhaust myself over the decision if whether or not the piece is really my piece or someone else's or maybe it's a piece of old Katniss, the girl who volunteered for her little sister, or is this the Capitol's Mockingjay's? Maybe it's a most recently new one, made overnight. I have no idea anymore. I take them all and shove them into the cracks, even if they don't fit. It makes me think of those toys, when kids are given individual little plastic shapes and they have to put them through the right hole. I'm doing that, every day. Only there's too many holes and nothing ever seems to fit.

I know I'm heading toward Peeta's room before I'm even out in the hall. A kid blitzes passed me when I pause in the door frame to catch my breath. He sees me, tosses his head around to grin and I note every missing tooth, the pale scar on his chin, the dark, obnoxiously deep purple shade of his shaggy hair that hangs over piercing green eyes. The exact color of eyes Leon has. "Hi, Katniss!" Benny calls at me as he races away.

His mother follows much more slowly. I look to her and she gives me a small, demure smile. Violet Dane isn't a thing like her father, with her pale heart-shaped face, round honey-amber eyes and purple hair, that is more of a lilac, no doubt influenced by her name, or perhaps is the namesake. She is a small woman with short legs and arms, rounded by motherhood, but not plump like most Capitolite women. You look at her and you would never think her capable of harming children, let alone her own, or mine. But that's the Capitol for you. Deceit, even in their appearances.

"He's excited," she says as she passes me, as if to explain. Her eyes glow warm. All I can think about is what she's hiding behind those inciting irises. Probably a hundred lies. The truth about what happened the day my baby was born. "The doctors have agreed to let Leon out today."

A million replies come to mind, each one more cruel than the last. "I hope he goes somewhere far away from the war, and takes Benny with him." I say it softly, weakly, as I stand, leaning into the doorway. We both understands the bite of my barb though. _I hope he leaves you. I hope he takes that little boy somewhere safe, away from this place, from these people. I hope he abandons this cause even if it is everything the people in the districts live for._

I'm surprised when Violet stops in her tracks. Her head lowers momentarily, as if she is thinking. About what? Calling the guards and arresting me? Punishing me? Throwing me into a room where I should watch one of my friends die? My thoughts run rampant, until she lifts her chin and says, "Me too," then continues on after Benny, disappearing into Leon's room.

I stand for a moment, refusing to feel sympathy for her. Just when I make to move again, I catch a glimpse of another person opening their door. Madge. I smile at her, and she smiles deplorably back. "Hey, Katniss," she murmurs. She's so downtrodden to look at; so sad, that is makes me forget Violet completely.

Per Cinna's advice, Madge's come to wearing a bandage across her left cheek, to cover up the awful burn mark, in the shape of the Capitol's seal. I know she hates seeing it when she looks in the mirror or when oblivious, unknowing children point it. Even the adults stare. I know we all have scars, but at least they aren't displayed on our faces.

"How are you?" she asks, whisper quiet. The hall suddenly seems one of stillness. All the other doors, but Leon's is closed. I can here Benny bouncing on his father's hospital cot, the springs squeaking as his voice runs on and on. A slow hum in the background, as blue eyes bore into mine.

It is such a simple question. A genuine, heartfelt "_how are you?" _so why is it such a complicated answer? I reach into my chest and stir up the remaining pieces of Katniss that are present this early morning. "Tired," I say.

"No sleep?"

"Yeah. The doctors keep moving me."

"Why?"

"They think it's better if Peeta doesn't strain himself."

Madge holds my gaze for a moment too long, as though debating what I'd just said, then, infinitely slowly, a smile spreads over her face. "That's..." she shakes her head, then, to my startlement, begins to laugh.

I'm confused as to why, but I, too, feel some formidable mirth rising in my stomach to my chest, influencing a smile onto my face. "What?"

"I just.. I'm sorry.." Madge wipes at her face, and gives her head another miffed shake. "You don't even hear yourself speak sometimes."

The smile on my face falters a bit. I don't get what she's poking at, but I find myself unable to completely scowl. Not when Madge has just laughed for the first time since.. "Like how?" I ask her.

"Well, before the Quarter Quell.. I didn't know what to think about you two. It always seemed so tense.. but now it's comfortable... like you don't even realize he's there anymore. In fact, you seem to expect it. And he always looks a bit lost when you're not around..." Madge's eyes become distant.

I know what she's doing. She's letting memories get to her. I move across the hall toward her doorway without thinking. I remember old Katniss. She wouldn't do this. She would be withdrawn and sympathetic, but hesitant to offer physical comfort. This Katniss, the me that is present right now? She remembers watching Mr. Undersee's fists beat at blood splattered tiles. She feels the oppression of the bright white cell, the heat of Madge and Cinna, pushing against her flanks, comforting her.

I lay an uncomfortable, but rightly motivated hand onto her shoulder and her eyes snap to my face. They are grief-filled. "They're taking me to District Twelve tomorrow," she says. Madge pushes out a long sigh, and seems breathless as she speaks, "I'm going to go bury my parents..."

And I know instantly what she's asking me.

"I'll come with you."

"You will?" Madge seems uncertain, like she wants to take back the unspoken offer. "You should stay here, with Peeta. He won't be able to go anywhere until next week at least.. and your son.."

"They'll both be alive when I get back. One day, right? All the districts aren't falling in that amount of time. Besides, I need to get out of this depressing place. I have to.. I think I need to go home. That's just what I need. I need somewhere I can clear my head and figure things out." _A place where I can decide my next move and determine who to trust._

Madge's smile is fragile. "I'm almost scared to see what's become of District Twelve since I've been gone."

"It's no more changed than us."

"I don't doubt that."

For a moment we are silent, staring at each other.

I drop my hand from her shoulder, deciding to move toward Peeta's room, but as I'm turning I watch Madge's eyes fall to my stomach. I pause instantly as she mushes her lips together; thinking. Then she sighs, thinks better of it, and raises her gaze back to mine. I know she knows. Like everything Madge has ever thought or acknowledged, she doesn't need to speak of it. Her face says it all. Her soft blue eyes are like a book. Unlike Peeta, who can move people with a speech, and me with daring actions, Madge has it all patented done within her face, the tilt of her chin, the rate at which she blinks, a pushed out lip.

"You can say it, you know," I breathe, when I finish flipping through the pages of apology and sympathy within her stare. I'm tired of people thinking it and keeping it to themselves. What are they afraid of? That I'll attack them? That I could deny the truth? I gnash my teeth together.

Madge tilts her chin and cocks her head in indication to her confusion.

I cross my arms over my chest and shift a bit under the bright light of her curiosity. "That I'm a bad mom." I look away from her face, down the hall, uncomfortable suddenly. "It–"

Madge interrupts, "I can't think of a baby any more lucky than him." Her praise is not only abrupt, but surprising. "With parents as strong and brave as you two?" Madge leans a shoulder into the door frame, then moves an arm that had been hugging her stomach to grab my hand. She tugs at it until it's free from my stiff hold. "He'll be back to you in no time."

I stare down at her hand in mine. "You think?"

"I _know_."

A sigh shudders through my chest at the thought. One part of me is grieving already, and the other half is mad with impatience, with anger. "It'll be too long. It's.. been too long already."

"Just know that he's waiting," Madge says. Her fingers squeeze around mine."He'll never stop waiting and you'll never stop wanting him, so when the time comes that he's back with you, when you have him in your arms and you can feel him resting against your chest.. you'll feel as though it was just the right amount of time."

I open my mouth to says something in reply, but instead a loud clamorous noise on our right causes me to suppress a jump and Madge's arm flinches back toward her body, dropping my hand. Both of us turn to stare at the locked door next to hers, as it rattles and jars against the hinges, as something–_someone_–repeatedly slams into it. _Her foot? Hand? Head? _"Where's my food?" comes a shout, in a voice that seems too high to be Johanna's.

Another loud bang.

I watch emotionlessly as Violet comes to the hallway briefly to see the source of the commotion, then, realizing it's only deranged Johanna, she turns on her feet, retreating to Leon's room, and closes the door behind her.

"I'm.. going to go wake Cinna," Madge excuses herself and flits passed me toward the door on our left. She closes it behind her, probably praying that the sound of Johanna's insanity won't enter behind her.

I retreat to Peeta's room in a similar way when I see doctors emerging to deal with Johanna. I almost feel bad leaving her to deal with them, but once I enter the room and close the door behind me, I forget that emotion, only to be draped in another one. "I'm cold," Peeta says as I enter.

"Well you should have held onto my arm tighter last night and the doctors wouldn't have moved me," I retort. Though there was a good deal of disdain I know he hears the teasing in my voice. Albeit no one else would have taken note.

"I didn't want to hurt you."

"You couldn't even if you tried," I point out, matter-of-fact. I'm across the room already and Peeta turns over in his cocoon of blankets to look at me. His face and eyes are haggard with sleeplessness. He has had bad dreams no doubt this last night without me. About the baby? I know his dreams were usually about losing me, but now that he's lost his son, does that only intensify the hurt of his nightmares?

I slide into the bed without even thinking about it.

Instantly I'm enveloped into his little swathe of blankets. Contrary to his claim, he isn't cold. He is very much warm. His lips, hot and damp, graze across my forehead as a greeting before he sighs and buries his face into the pillows just above my head. I can feel his chest rise with each inhale, tasting the smell of shampoo. I can detect vague wafts of musk from him. There is a missing baker smell. Missing blonde curls, that are now a strange sort of black with blonde roots. Cinna says he'll fix that for Peeta, though honestly, Peeta didn't seem to care.

Inside our shell I feel disconnected from the world. Peeta's little changes and flaws don't jump out at me, but rather they are just _there_. A part of him. They aren't flaws. For Prim, who can never keep her shirt tucked in, I adore that defect of hers. I nickname her for it. And I can't bring myself to completely dislike the hair or the scars or the temper shortening in Peeta.

Sometimes I wonder what he sees when he looks at me. Does he notice all the little pieces that don't fit? He must. Peeta picks them up, brushes them off and like an artist with the utmost skill, he slips them into the right cracks without me even noticing. Try as I might, I can't find his cracks today.

Peeta's hot breath sifts through my hair as he speaks. "I'm worried about you."

I close my eyes and pull myself closer to his chest, arms held against my own. "You're always worried about me," I murmur. And he is. I can't think of one instant in my life where Peeta wasn't looking for someway to lessen my pain or my burden, by both giving me food when I was starving, or not hesitating when giving up his place in the world when we were in the arena and he was prepared to make me victor. Even the night of the Quarter Quell.. our turning point..

Peeta does not reply. Instead one of his hands, slowly traces its way up and down my back, sending delicious little thrills of pleasure through my body. Then, on one downward sweep, his hand goes much lower than it had previously, and it orbits around to the front, caressing my belly, until his knuckles just barely rub and bump over the ridge of the scar; the only thing we have left of our son.

My body jerks away from his touch, and he goes very still.

"Why?" I ask. "Why are you so worried for me?"

Peeta keeps his hand very still for a long time, and does not move it again until he finally speaks. "I know what hate can do to a person." His hand is now running from the nape of my neck, down my back, over my spine, about my buttocks, slowly, lovingly, and then up again, traveling as leisurely on its return as it had on its journey thither. Burning into my skin an enthralling, complex weave of swirls and lines. I have to force away trembling, partly brought on by what Peeta is saying, but mostly due to his hands.

"Hate can become not merely a means of existence, but the very nature of existence. Rather quickly.." Peeta sounds sad, and ponderous. "It can became more than that... it can became a vehicle, a means of achieving ambitions. Ambitions that might be rightly thought about, but approached in the worst way. Hate can became a safe place to _hide_, Katniss."

Impossibly glib, as always, while I am struggling to come up with a reply. I know what he's saying, what he's trying to imply. That I'm letting myself burn in the fever of my hatred for the people around us and for President Snow. Even though he agrees to my cause of finding our baby boy, he does not approve of a reckless, hate-motivated, murderous approach.

"Hate is something too easy to fall into," Peeta continues to whisper into my hair. "It is... addictive. Safe. It demands nothing save that it be fed. It's an easy path, when you have been dealt the bad end of a deal. You'll end up only taking it out on others. Fire burns all those around it, not just the one who started it..."

There is something about Peeta's voice and the way his face is not directly facing mine, that makes me realize he's speaking to me from experience. This isn't just his speech-giving side bringing him to this discussion. There is fear in his voice. For a moment I try to imagine Peeta hating anyone, but besides being angry at Haymitch recently and the other rebels, he's never hurt anyone, by neither words or actions. Not even Gale. And yes, there were those in the arena, but he was only doing what everyone else had; even retaining his humanity by always seeking out peaceful transactions ahead of chaotic ones. So he can't be speaking about himself. Not him directly, no.. but as a victim of the burn from another fire, that a different person had started..

I'm suddenly back in the woods, as he tells me about an awful closet. This opening and sharing between us has not happened since then.. and it is painful and dangerous. Especially now, where we are, standing on this precarious ledge.

Peeta feels me stiffen underneath his fingers. _He's seen what hate and bitterness does to a person. He knows the pain of hatred from the fist of his mother. Is he worried I'll become the same incarnation? Addicted to hate? Using my anger as a shelter.. a hideout? Getting so hopelessly entangled in my ill-placed passion that hitting my own baby would bring me satisfaction to my rage? _I draw in a breath. Sometimes it's hard to know what Peeta is thinking about. It's so easy to assume. Like when I assumed him trying to kill me during our first Hunger Games – now I can say with no uncertainty he wouldn't hurt me even in the most dreadful of circumstances. This though... this is different.. hard.. embarrassing..

But compared to that moment in the woods and to now, neither of us are the same seventeen year old sentenced to death. There is no clock to our demise. A need to live in our chest, as we kissed in those woods beneath the cold starlight, or sat in the sunset on the Training Center roof, or.. impossibly irreversible, the night I opened up to him, thinking that I would die, that it was my last chance.. that I couldn't let him go without knowing I gave it my all..

No. I'm not that girl anymore, the one who thought she was on the verge of death.. so close to dying, that I became foolish. We both were blinded by hormones.. and emotions. To predict this moment, right now, on this hospital cot would have been unpredictable. How could I have known I would get pregnant? How could we have guessed we'd lose the baby in the worst way possible, betrayed by our own? We didn't. We couldn't. And I just wish for one moment to go back. Just one ounce of regret touches me. A piece of me pleading to take it all away. Return to the days before my father died. I would seek Peeta out.. because now I know.. now I see... but it's just that; _now_ I do.

And it's already far too late.

I lift myself until I'm at height to Peeta, looking into his eyes. He seems to be waiting, as his eyes travel across the air behind my head. For what? Does he expect anger? Is he worried it's too late for this speech? What can I do to convince him that I'm not this creature? I'm not... am I? Yes, I do dream about sinking an arrow through President Snow's throat.. but, that's not what Peeta's against, is it?

Peeta puts his words into a simple question. "Do you still hate, Katniss?"

I don't know. I never know. I don't want to say yes, because he's not being specific enough. Saying yes, might be the wrong answer. _I never had the right answer for Head Peacekeeper Brock.. _and I shudder underneath my skin. My mouth, however, opens for me, and whispers to Peeta, "Not here, not with you."

Peeta does not seem reassured. So I do the only thing I can do to comfort him. I kiss his mouth, and stroke his face with a brief touch of my fingers, and after a moment or two he finally allows his eyes to meet with mine. "On some days," he whispers, "I am nauseous with fear. I think I'll lose you.. and maybe not just to death, but because I'll misstep and you'll hate me. And I can't breathe when I think about our son, being so far away, where he is...and yet..."

I cast my face downward, unable to look at him as he talks about the baby. One of my hands rested against my chest, falls away to lay in the little bubble of space between our stomachs. A round space, just big enough for an infant to lay, wrapped in the warmth of our breath and the soft sound of our whispers. For a moment I imagine a baby there, between us, and my fingers stroke the sheets, timid, barely unfurling from their fist, as I picture my son's face beneath them.

My eyes begin to tingle warmly and I will that away.

"I could never hate you," I breathe, finally, some minutes later. I can't lift my eyes still, but I feel rather than see him shift. The hand Peeta doesn't have against my back dances across the small space curved between our bodies. He catches my hand in the middle, then entwines our fingers.

When I do look at his face, it is his eyes that are downcast. Blonde eyelashes laying against his cheeks, and I have an insane urge to touch them. My thumb reaches for his face, and his eyes fly to mine. I can feel my heart inside my throat as the pad of my finger just barely graces the edge of his chin, then slowly, traces about the border, around the jaw, over his forehead, about his cheekbones.

Peeta is perfectly still during this, his eyes hooded with emotion. I can feel my stomach grow uncomfortably tight, and even more so when the hand of his on my back begins to trace again, slowly upwards... until he reaches my shoulder blades, and loops around to my front, a finger running along the length of my collarbone.

From my jaw to my heart, Peeta's hand rises and falls, drawing into the skin endless shapes of nothing. "Do.. you.." Peeta begins, but seems to lose his nerve.

There is timidness in his eyes. Pain, too. "What? Do I..?"

Peeta smiles; a slow thing, that seems to be half forced, then, turns genuine all on its own. "I don't think either of us won the bet."

I know instantly he's talking about the bet to name our baby. _How can we know, when he's not here to look at and see whose eyes he has?_ "I could still win," I say, softly, ridiculously obliged to defend my half of a deal.

"Nope," Peeta says. "We both thought the baby would be a girl. We both lose. So..."

"So?"

"So maybe we could come up with a name together, right now. Just for us. That way.." and Peeta fingers linger on my neck, his fingernails scraping up to my jawline, then running along my cheek. His thumb caresses passed my lips, then again, as if he's seriously debating kissing me. However his eyes are boring into mine; slightly excited, bright. "That way," he continues, "if we ever get separated again or anything. Or there's doubt.. we know that only we know this. This is our piece, that no one will manipulate or take from us.."

"It's just a name."

Peeta will not be squashed. "Names are important."

"What makes you think so?"

"You," he says without hesitation. "Always Katniss. It's always been you. And I remember painstakingly trying to figure out your name in kindergarten. You're still..."

"I have changed a little." _I'm not old Katniss._

"You have grown a great deal. But..." His voice changes, becomes full of love. "You're still Katniss. Don't you see that? I shouldn't have said what I did. I know you're too smart to let hate take you over. You're too stubborn for the others to win in that way.." I silence his flow of words by shifting the finger I still have on his face to rest against his lips.

Silence. Be quiet. I allow my eyes to close again, my hand falling away from Peeta's face to the crook of his shoulder and neck, fingers laying lightly against the soft skin of his throat. Though he's agreed to my plea for silence, Peeta's thumb glides along the swoop of my eyelids, ruffling my eyelashes. I press my fingers more deeply into his flesh. I hear what he's saying, and I love him for it. Where other people will rebuke when they see the ways I have changed, Peeta will only accept, claim them mine. Is there any way I could change myself that would make him forget his love? Could Peeta ever stop loving me? I recall his fear that I would abruptly turn away from him, at the wrong move, but I don't think it's possible. Not when he's the only one who can make me believe these strange pieces inside me are mine.

And suddenly I know why he wants to name our son, to have this piece together, as ours.

I tug Peeta closer with the hands that still lay tangled together against the sheets. Though no matter how close he is, I know it's impossible to take away from the intimacy swelling around us during this conversation.

"What do you want to name him?" I say, finally, opening my eyes.

Peeta strokes his knuckles down the side of my cheek. "Vincent."

"Vincent?"

"Vinny, for short."

That is not a name I expected. "Why?"

"Because it's a strong name, a sweet name," says Peeta, confidently.

_Vinny, _I think, picturing in my head the image of the baby, a whirl of black and blonde and grey and blue. I can't decide, but either way it seems appropriate. Somehow for him to have a name, it makes the pain more intense, missing him is worse. Vincent. My son, so far away. I can imagine some strange woman stroking his head of blonde curls, as he suckles at her chest instead of mine. I feel the warm tingle behind my eyes again, a tight pain twisting inside my chest. _My baby Vinny_.

He'll need strength. With Peeta and I as his parents? A confused and unstable pair of eighteen year olds? Yes, Vincent will need all the strength we can gift. And sweetness.. like Prim, unlike me. Sweetness to counter act the hardness of strength.

"Okay."

"You don't have any suggestions?" asks Peeta. He dips closer to me until his lips are dragging along the extent of my jaw. "Nothing?" he murmurs into the sensitive skin beneath my ear.

"No," I whisper, honestly. "I like Vincent."

"Then you'll allow it?" I can feel the curl of his mouth against my throat.

"Yes," I say, "I'll allow it."

Peeta's fingers glides across my face until he's got my cheek firmly cupped in his palm. Using this to his advantage, he lifts his face from my neck to guide my lips to his. My muscles stiffen, in reaction to the twist of my stomach, but he knows I will not pull away. So Peeta takes his time, drawing me against his body, very slowly exploring my mouth with his, tormenting me with softness. "I remember," he murmurs, pulling his mouth away from mine just enough so that he could speak, "the first time I kissed you," a smile spreads across his face, impossibly wide with his joy, "and I was half dead. I had thought that those kisses, then were good. And then afterward, during the Victory Tour, I didn't like your kisses. Actually, I disliked them, a lot..."

"Well you're the first person I've ever kissed before. You taught me," I reply, eyes narrowing. "If I'm that awful–"

Peeta laughs with what seems to be genuine amusement, and perhaps even a little relief. "No, Katniss. You're a spectacular kisser." Seemingly to prove that point Peeta presses his lips into mine again, opening my mouth to his, before pulling away just enough to continue his thought. "I meant to say that I didn't like knowing they were fake. Until.. that day, in the woods.. when you showed me your father's bow.. that kiss seemed so.. real. Then all the other ones afterward, them, too. Then those nights.." Peeta's words cut off a little breathlessly, and his lips lock into mine again, with fever.

I feel my body winding up because of these kisses, with his body pressed so snugly and warmly against mine. The kisses aren't pure sensual fire or sexual tension, they're different. His hand gliding to the nape of my neck, tangling into the base of my braid isn't demanding or asking for more. Peeta is reveling. And I'm merely enjoying the ride. "I love you," Peeta murmurs to my cheek, as his lips travel to my nose, then to my temple, kisses lost into my hair. When his lips find my ear, I shudder at the sound of his whisper, "_Vincent."_

It's like a naughty secret, that gives me a strange thrill, which runs up my spine and a horrible sadness that pierces through my heart. "Yes," I say, voice shaking. For that weakness, I try to breathe deeper, to recover from Peeta's influences on my body physically, but I'm unable to recover completely before Peeta's mouth is on mine again. His lips are soft, wet, slipping against mine easily, tasting of cinnamon (maple flavored porridge this morning?). "_Vincent_," I sigh against his cheek when Peeta's lip once more make a smooth transition from lips to jaw.

He laughs again, this one much lower and deeper in his chest and throat. Today seem the day for laughter; Benny, Madge, Peeta. "I know I should be angry and raging and completely inconsolable, but.." Peeta's heavy breath against the side of my neck, then my shoulder as his mouth continues to travel, chastely, but earnestly, causes my pulse to tick a pace faster.

"But?" I prompt softly.

"_But_," Peeta says, "for one moment, I just want to enjoy the fact that.. well, we have a son. And that your his mother. That the girl I've loved since I was five has just chosen the name of our baby with me."

_Then take that moment,_ I think, somehow unable to say it aloud. Instead I offer him my mouth, and he takes it eagerly. I can feel my fingers clinging to his hand, crushed between our bodies, cramped, because of how tightly I hold onto him. The kiss doesn't last long, before Peeta just pulls me somehow closer to him, my face tucked underneath his chin, the hand at the nape of my neck weaving its way into the tight laces of my braid against my scalp. Like this Peeta cradles me and I hear him say into my hair, once or twice, every so often, "_Vincent_," or "_Vinny_," and I feel my own moment of joy rise inside my stomach, up into my chest, until a smile sits on my face, hidden against his collarbone.

"I'm.." I try, gathering my thoughts, my words. My free hand raises a finger to drag slowly down the bump of his adam's apple, my eyes watching my hand unblinkingly as it travels in small circles across his shoulder and collarbone, then up to his throat again. I can't make shapes like Peeta, but I feel his own reaction to my touch and enjoy that, if only in a negligible way.

"As soon as you're better, we're going to get him back," I finish saying. Originally I had meant to agree with him. I liked the fact that we got to have this private piece, this name, to ourselves. However what I did say seemed more important for him to know, for me to accomplish. "Tomorrow I'm going to District Twelve with Madge–" I pause there, waiting for Peeta to pull away from our embrace or to speak, but he does not object to this claim, and he does not offer to tag along. _He knows that he can not stop me and will not try. _This heartens me somehow. For six months I was under the harsh and watchful eyes of people who dictated my every breath, my every word, when I slept or ate or endured torture.. though I feel utterly ridiculous for feeling elated by such a simple action of non-restrictive domination, I feel it. "While I'm there I'm hoping I'll be able to figure some things out. Maybe someone will know what happened those two days I was unconscious, who really is lying. After that, Haymitch–" I say the name with no amount of emotion "–says that, you'll be able to get into training with me and the others once you're able..."

"I was already in training," Peeta nearly groans.

"Trust me, I would rather not either," I deadpan, and then think it over. "If I can somehow get this rebel Mockingjay job to hurry along, I'll do that instead. They want propos to counter my old ones." My head is already shaking slightly in dissatisfaction. "I don't know how or what or anything. All I know is that I'm not going to flounce around in a pretty outfit and read from a script when I know Vinny is in the Capitol with President Snow. I want to be doing something helpful. If I'm across all the televisions in Panem Snow will know I'm being disobedient.. but if I'm sent to some district still fighting for freedom, there I can fight without being seen. There, I would be doing something worth while."

Peeta is quiet for some moments, then he shrugs. "Just tell me what you think is best to do. I honestly don't know anymore. I thought I could trust them.. the rebels of District Thirteen.." his voice cuts off abruptly, equal parts regretful and angry. "Obviously, I make the worst alliances in the world. You choose and I'll follow. You'll know what's best for me and Vincent, I trust you."

A short-lived, burst of laughter breaks from my mouth. I'm brought back to the days he spoke of just moments ago; before the Quarter Quell, but after the announcement. There was so much turmoil and doubt in me over the debate of whether or not Peeta trusted me. I couldn't figure out, then, why it bothered me so much.. and now all I can think is that he is literally letting me choose his next course of action.

In the arena he gave me similar control, because it was not his element and he was near death, unable to walk properly. Then it had not perturb me in the least. I _did_ know what I was doing there in the woods. I was determined to protect him and myself. There is still that determination now, Vinny included in that, but now I'm not in an element I know at all. Neither of us can navigate the waters of government very well. Peeta might have at one point in his life, been able to charm them to his will or simply convince them with sincere words. Now? Now.. I don't know what he's capable or incapable of. All I know is that he's not keen on forgiving them anytime sooner than myself.

"I trust you, too," I admit, and sigh. "I think the only few people I can still trust is you or Prim, sometimes Madge. Gale, too, though it's been so long.. almost seven months." _Five months away from a year. _Suddenly, I'm thinking of Gale and how I'll ever manage to talk to him, what we will have to say to each other.

Peeta knows my unease without being told. "He'll still be your friend."

"How do you know?"

"Because he's almost as stubborn as you," Peeta says, knowingly. "He's loyal, too. He'll be there in District Twelve. Tell him I say hi." There is almost an amused edge to his voice at the last word, but I don't detect it enough to call him out on it.

"How do you know he'll be there?"

"That's where the soldiers of District Thirteen are taking the homeless refugees and citizens. Pretty much all those that are ineligible to fight. Hundreds of people are being thrown out of their own districts that are under Capitol control. Or they're killed. Some are running, too, in search of a home. If they aren't fighting, they're either too old or too young and so District Thirteen has managed to make some sort of temporary refugee camp inside the confines of District Twelve. Gale was heading that project."

"How do you know all this?"

"I guess I'm just a really good listener. People speak to me and I hear them with my ears–"

"That's not what I meant." I scowl.

"I know."

There is silence. I'm imagining what will happen tomorrow when I'm reintroduced to the world beyond the Capitol, other than within this depressing and unknown district. What will District 12 look like? It'll be different from when I visited it in the summer. Last winter in District 12 had been cold and unforgiving, and I hope that does not go for the same this year. War? In the middle of winter? How would anyone get enough food? The rebels and Capitol are already fighting harshly over food reaping districts, but how much has the fighting depleted their supplies? Starving armies won't be good for either side.

I shake myself slightly, to push away these troubling thoughts. No. I won't let the war go on that long. It'll be done with before winter is at its peak. I won't allow my son to remain in the poisonous hands of President Snow any longer than it takes for me to reach the Capitol. I have other things to worry about other than cold weather and food supply.

"Peeta?"

"Yes, love?"

"I wanted to ask you something."

"Anything."

"I have a mandatory doctor appointment." My voice is bitter and biting, because I remember the rigorous scolding I received by both Haymitch and–surprisingly, but more softly–Cinna, for skipping out on every doctoral encounter that had come my way since the morning I awoke. "Soon. This morning, sometime. Probably as soon as they're done with Johanna and Boggs."

"Want me to throw some punches?" Peeta teases.

"No," I say, mostly because he can't even get out of the bed without pain. "Just.. stay with me."

"Always." I'm so exhausted emotionally that even the jolt of the memory does not seem to matter. I was under the influence of sleep syrup. My heel had been injured after I'd climbed out on a branch over the electric fence and dropped back into 12. Peeta had put me to bed and I had asked him to stay with me as I was drifting off. He had whispered something I couldn't quite catch. But some part of my brain had trapped his single word of reply and let it swim up through my thoughts to taunt me now.

_Always._

Somehow this word makes me feel sick in the very pit of my stomach. A foul bubbling of upset. Of fear. For what? I have no idea. All I know is that I'm tired and wrung out and all I want is to close my eyes.

Eventually, I drift off. I know because dreams rush up to meet me in unconsciousness. I'm lost, like always, within the endless tunnels of darkness. Brought on by most likely my conversation with Madge, the dream is a long and wearying thing in which I'm trying my desperate hardest to get to District 12. Each corner is worse than the last. Somehow I know I can't trust the light glowing deep within them. There is the green light and I see Chaff's ghost waiting there. Or the pink tunnel where a distant screaming man greets my eardrums. Some tunnels are blue lit or orange lit, and all the colors in the world. I've just reached the conclusion that I'm never going to be free, when Effie Trinket, conspicuous in a bright pink wig and tailored outfit, appears with me. She rattles on about being on schedule and directs me toward the obnoxiously bright purple light. As I'm stepping toward it, I hear just at the limits of my reach, a soft, whisper of words on the cold breeze that sweeps through these dim undergrounds. _Vincent, _comes the voice, _Vinny, Vincent. Vin._ When I abruptly turn on my heels to return the way I'd come, it's too late: there is already a wall blocking off the way I had come from, I've taken the wrong path. It's too late. Too late to find him.

I wake feeling drained and burdened.

Peeta sleeps on, though, seemingly peaceful. I lay for a long time within his arms, listening to his each shuddering breath (due to his harmed lung), and with my cheek against his chest, hovering over his steady heartbeat. I must have moved my position in sleep. My hair is undone and tangled beneath me, twisted around and into one of his hands. Peeta must have done it while I was slumbering, or possibly unconsciously in his own sleep. What hasn't changed or moved, is our hands locked between us, my fingers stiff and aching from the grip I've managed to maintain.

I began to stir my hand, to pry it from his, without disturbing him, but just as I'm almost free, his fingers contort and pull my hand back into its grasp. Peeta's body shifts next, his lips passing against the top of my head. His voice is groggy. "The doctors came," he says, "I sent them away."

"Without throwing punches, I hope."

"I threatened a few," he murmurs amusedly, "but they were all too scared to take on a fight with me."

I gave a bemused shake of my head and that's the end of it. I use his wakefulness to my advantage by taking my chance at stretching, unfurling my legs from draping around his, and raise my arms to the sides, tensing and untensing tired muscles. Peeta rolls away from me some to do the same, but winces when he moves too much or too extensively. I fight the grimace off my face when the muscles in my stomach roar to life with irritation and pain.

Despite the doctors apparent fear of Peeta, they return. One insists I come to my room and speak privately with them, or to allow them to examine me somewhere more seclusive. My response to them is to look at them as if they were too stupid to comprehend that the only person(s) in this room I'm uncomfortable talking to or letting them touch my body is _them_, not Peeta.

I move out of the blankets and seat myself at the foot of the cot, as Peeta raises himself to lean his back against the head board. I grip the ledge of the bed, when one of the doctors moves aside my shirt, instructing me to lay back as his hands glide along my scars and examine the stitches. He is glad to note no signs of infection, and advises me that the more I move around, the better stretched the muscles and skin becomes, making it more flexible and durable in the long run. After that, he leaves, and promises to come back later for Peeta. Peeta gives a goodhearted, but guarded smile.

"And you?" I say to the remaining doctor. It's a woman with the most mournful green eyes I have ever seen. I don't know her name or where she comes from, only that she doesn't look like a Capitolite. "Would you like to cop a feel, too?" I make a move to raise my shirt, but the woman reaches out a quick hand to grasp me gently, but firmly by the wrist.

"No, Katniss," she says, "I'm just here to talk."

To use my first name makes me suspicious. I watch her with sharp eyes as she lets go of my wrist and sinks onto the cot next to me. Too close to me. She smells of cleaning chemicals and dill. Her expression is made up of compassion and sympathy, and professionalism, too. A strange mixture.

I feel, rather than see, Peeta lean away from the head board, toward us. "What about? Is there news.."

"No, this isn't new information," the woman replies, turning away from my hard scowl. Instead she meets Peeta's anxious gaze. "They told us that it was best that we saved it for.. a far later date. However, it does not feel right to us.. to me. Maybe to those other doctors from the Capitol and District Thirteen who live and breathe their orders and their own selfish agendas. But here? In District Three, I like to think that we're more healer than soldier. And how can one heal if they don't know they're wounded?"

At that inquisition this strange young woman swivels around to face me. She takes my hand again and I flinch away on instinct. The woman settles for resting a hand on my shoulder, which dips away from her touch. "Katniss.." her voice is sad, grief-filled. _Oh, odds, what is she going to tell me? Is it Prim? Peeta? Is he worse than he appears? Has Snow poisoned him? Or was it the baby? Some sort of defect? News that was not given to us.. secrets.. _I'm both impatient and terrified at what this woman will tell me. "Katniss.. the condition in which we received you was.. most barbaric. We can't seem to figure out what they used to cut you open with, but whatever it was, it wasn't clean or proper. The drugs they used to knock you out for that long.. were potentially poisonous to your baby. Since we never got ahold of him, we don't know how it effected him. Maybe none, depending on how long it took them to get him out.."

Each thing surprises me, but doesn't. I'm more distracted by my inane fumbling between pain for Vincent and trying to untangle nonexistent hints within her voice. Is she telling me what went down the day the rebel doctors took my son? Or is she honestly relaying to me what she saw the day Snow threw my ravish, empty body back to them?

Peeta careens around the woman's form to catch my attention, but my eyes are focused unwaveringly on her face.

"I was one of the doctors assigned to heal you, Katniss," she murmurs, her voice somehow softer. She is growing emotional. I can see and hear it in the crack of her throat. _Why?_ Has she lost a child before and knows my loss? "Katniss, as both a woman and doctor, and.. even just a human being, I tried my best to restore what was damaged. However, I'm pained to tell you, you'll never have another child. The impairment that had been dealt to your uterus is irreversible. There's no modern medicine or surgery that exists to cure bareness. I know," she says, lifting those mournful eyes to me. "And my healing license may be suspended for telling you this, against direct orders not to further upset the Mockingjay, but I didn't find it right. Keeping such a thing from you. You deserve to know."

My mouth opens to reply, but no sound comes out. I am more shocked to emotionlessness, than any divine strike of pain or anger or sadness. The emptiness is almost welcome. Another part of me speaks, a composed side that Snow had shocked into my system. "Thank you," I tell the woman, in a voice too formal and hollow to be mine.

She blinks at me a few times, before composing herself and squeezing my shoulder. Her eyes fly back and forth from my smooth face to Peeta's downtrodden and concerned one. She rises to her feet. "I'll just... leave you two alone," she says, and retreats across the room, closing the door softly behind her.

Peeta instantly dives to make a grab at me. "Wait," I say, throwing up a hand. My mind is running in circles, making connections, trying to consume the entirety of her words. _The condition in which we received you was.. most barbaric. _Who else but Snow would leave me that way? The rebels wouldn't.. would they? Am I already thinking too darkly of people who rise against my common enemy? Isn't this just what the Capitol wants? They've always turned us on each other, when we've never had our own quarrels, aside the reasons the Capitol give. _Is this why Snow chose to do the particularly unpredictable move such as handing me over peacefully? Does he really believe me so useless, that he handed me back in a state that sounded potentially fatal?_

I suck in a harsh, long breath, because I'd forgotten to breathe for several minutes. My head is spinning after that, so I clutch the blankets into a fist, twisting it tightly just to keep myself sitting.

"Katniss?" Peeta's voice is like a boys. Scared. Worried.

"I'm fine," I say, throwing him a look. I shrug. Shake my head. "This is just another thing. Besides it's not like I wanted kids in the first place.. ever. I don't.. this is _good_ news."

"Are you sure?"

My only answer is a dry sob.

Peeta moves more on instinct than command, reaching out to me, murmuring soothing words, wrapping me in his arms, rocking me to and fro. "I'm fine," I manage. I try to move from his unbreakable embrace, pushing at his hands.

"It's okay to cry."

"I don't want to cry," I snap. A wretched, warm trembling begins to wrap itself around my hands and shoulders, and try as I might, I can't smother their shaking with sheer will power. "I don't have to cry. I'm _happy_. This is.. we won't ever have to go through this again, assuming we live. And that way.." Another sob breaks passed my throat, betraying me, until a whole onslaught of emotions that I have not even broached consumes me.

Shaking hands dash at the hot tears streaming on my cheeks; but the flow would not be ebbed any longer. Three long days have passed.. six horrifying months, and they would not be simply ignored or _willed away_, no matter how strong or stubborn I am.

"I am so sorry," whispers Peeta. I cling to him, my weeping increasing, and he rocks me back and forth.

"Katniss," he utters, "don't cry, please don't cry."

I don't want to, and he should know that. I try to stop, but I can't. My nose is running, my eyes so swollen with tears I can hardly see out of them, and my chest keeps wracking out sobs from so deep within me I think I might actually bring up my stomach with the strength of them.

"Katniss," whispers Peeta, running one hand through my hair and using the other to wipe my nose with a corner of his sleeve. "Don't cry, please. We have Vincent.. he's all I'll ever want or need. He's ours. He's yours. We have him." I hear his own voice grow upset, at my own reaction to this news. _But why am I so upset? Because I'll never have another baby? No. Not that. Because it's just another failing of mine, as a mother.. or maybe it is the baby... what if I lost Vinny, what if.. and I'd never have another. It shouldn't upset me because I've never wanted a child.. yet.._

Another sob rattles through my ribcage.

Peeta's face is pressed into my neck, and his kisses litter the side of my face; sweet, pleading appeals. "...you are so beautiful, so lovely, I can't bear to see you so unhappy..." Another gasping pause of air as I gather oxygen for yet more sobs. "...Vincent, we have him... I don't care if you can't... tell me what I can do.. how.. why.." His words seem too fast and jumbled to comprehend.

I think he senses he is not breaking through to me, because abruptly, he gathers me to him, holding me close, then swears softly under his breath, tips back my face, and stifles my sobs with his mouth.

This isn't a kiss like this morning, or like any other, foolish or fake or fire-branded, it's a kiss that does not offer me just sheer physical pleasure, but a depth of comfort and loving that honestly, one kiss should not be able to possess. His mouth is so sweet though, his arms so soothing..

"Katniss…" he repeats, and I hear the concern in his voice, a question after my well-being, and this time I am not predisposed to answer. Instead, I find my hands suddenly holding him on both sides of his face, deepening the kiss.

After all, there's nothing left for me to lose, is there? And some small, petty part of me whispers that it would be just the right spiteful thing to do. Act as though it is an advantage, that this is good news. Surely I'm that good at acting now, I can convince myself of this.

_No. It's not just spite, _I think, as Peeta responds reluctantly to my tongue against his. He won't refuse me now. Not if there is a chance it'll hurt me. Not if he's afraid to misstep.

The tears still fall across my face, but the pain is slowly fading, with it every other emotion, and feeling. Everything but emptiness. As empty as my useless uterus. A sob racks through me, disrupting the kiss and we break apart. Peeta clutches me by the shoulders to keep me at a speaking distance, his eyes dancing over my face. "Katniss," he begins, wary, "are you sure you're thinking properly? I don't want this to be.. something–"

I make an exasperated, frustrated sound. Why does there always have to be words? Why does everything have to be labeled and examined? I've spent the last two years of my life being watched on television, my every feeling and emotion scrutinized by the whole country. I don't want definitions, or apologies, or words. Just kisses. Just comfort. Just him. Just pleasure that I know he can elicit inside my body.

"Yes," I answer him, forcefully. I rock my form into his, feeling his muscles tense at my touch. My fingers spread across the surface of his face as I clutched him there. "Yes," I whisper again. I bring his lips back to mine in a kiss, a harder one than before.

My hands slip from his face to his shoulders in moments, tearing at his shirt there, while also trying to push him back against the bed. "Katniss," Peeta gasps into my mouth, gathering both my wrists in one hand, and pulling me back to examine. "Not like that."

Before I can snap or shy or even respond in any way to that statement, Peeta leans forward to give me a kiss; a sweeter one, a gentle one. I melt into it. I slip so easily into him, into this act that it does not seem only my second time. For several minutes it is just kisses, my wrists still restricted in Peeta's strong hands, keeping me from driving us forward, racing through pleasure.

We're both too injured to stand to undress so, it is with a slow movement Peeta lifts my shirt over my head. I have an urge to wrap my arms about myself the instant I'm bare, to hide my stomach from sight, but Peeta abruptly lurches forward, a hand around my waist. He lowers me onto my back against the cot, despite the strain all the movement must be.

He hovers above me, barely touching, save for the fingers he uses to wipe away the last of my tears. "I think you're beautiful," he whispers, and without breaking eye contact, his face drops to the very edge of my shoulder. Slowly, his lips travel down my collarbone, easily maneuvering to the valley between my breasts. The feel of his cheek brushing against my nipple causes a tight, sharp sort of pleasure to grip my chest. Peeta doesn't linger on that, though, for tonight isn't about pleasure, rather comfort, healing, despite my exquisite need for such a simple, burning forgetfulness that only physical stimulus can bring.

His lips reach my scar. I try to move at first, but he grips me tightly by both hips and his harsh breath against my stomach is enough to make me lightheaded, so groggy from emotions and crying.

He is so slow, so gentle. The light touch of his fingertips on my sides, running fingernails up to my arms, then hot pads down to my pants.. the warm caress of his breath as he runs his mouth down my body... eventually, as his lips touch the scarcely protruding curve of my hip bone, his chest rubs against my center and a spark of pleasure courses through my groin.

"Peeta," I say, encouraging. My hands move to touch his face, run my fingers through his hair. His chest shakes with a slight laugh, and it causes me to unintentionally buck my hips up into him.

His hands wander to the sides of my pants, then a finger runs along the length of the waistband, until he's just barely tugging them away from my flesh. Anticipation balls into my chest, as he works away the fabric, sitting on his knees between my legs. Once they are out of the way, he pauses to smile at me, looking down at me, an endearing curl of his lips as he pulls his own shirt carefully over his head, revealing a heavily wrapped set of shoulders, the bandages white and thick, and cottony. For one heartbeat I think not to do this, and my mind, impossibly, goes to Madge, laughing this morning about the words I had said, about the doctors not wanting Peeta to strain himself. _This is the image she had in her head._

Through my shell of numbness amusement touches me, as well as all the emotions Peeta sends through. He does not immediately act to remove my underwear, but stays withdrawn, reaching out a hand, and running it down my middle, beginning at my ribcage, to the very edge of said clothing. I shudder, then catch the hand, and press it into one of my bare breasts.

_More, _I try to convey to him, _faster, more pleasure. Make me feel something. _

His hand kneads slowly. I open my mouth and Peeta moves forward to kiss it, slowly, imploringly, and when he draws back, bright blue eyes locked in mine, he whispers, "I'm going to do something new."

Everything already feels new, or unexplored, yet familiar. I capture his lips again, speak against his mouth, "I'm not afraid.. I trust you," and Peeta's hand is suddenly moving.

One hand still kneads into my chest, while the other cups my center. A finger unfurls from formation. Runs along the cotton underwear and I feel the strings of muscles in my lower abdomen tighten. His kiss is heavy now, deeper, but no less soft. Pulling out of me sounds, from pits deeper within me than the place where the sobs had originated.

One finger turns into two, rubbing up and down, friction caused by the fabric. "Off," I say, almost incoherent.

Peeta complies with my wishes, moving both his hands to pull the restraining cotton from my center. As he works the underwear passed my thighs, his kisses once again travel downward, and I'm suddenly brought back to a dream, not a long time ago, but it is hard to grasp, because it seems too unreal, whereas this is real, and graspable, and _good_..

I don't rebuke when Peeta's kiss goes down further than ever before. He pulls away only to allow me to kick off the underwear around my ankles, and when he returns, he places one calm hand on my hip and another one rubbing up and down the side of my inner thigh. His breath tickles passed my center, as it is ragged and uneven, exhilarated and deep. Inexperienced.

However inexperienced, I'm none the wiser, as I feel my body react to his every action. Tongue swiveling against my center, teasing me, tantalizing me, drawing from my belly a warm ache. I arc into him, before long, breath harsh. Hips bucking against the heavy hand settled on my side.

When I let free some sort of moan, that is deep and startlingly loud, Peeta laughs, and that's what sets me off. The final tick to the bomb, as the pressure becomes a rolling pleasure that envelopes my center with warmth, then my cheeks, and hammering heart. A simple vibration of Peeta's mirth and the hand I have buried in his hair, glides from his scalp to his cheek, guiding him upward as kisses, wetter, slippery than before run up my side.

Peeta reaches my face, kisses me deeply. He tastes of salt.

"You liked it?" he asks, as I try to recover oxygen to my lungs.

My reply is only a breathless smile.

The hand on his cheek moves downward. My knuckles skimming across his neck toward his chest, fingers soon tracing the edges of his bandages and muscles. Even scars. I'm wordless for many minutes and Peeta's eyes are closed, as he rests against an elbow supporting him against the cot just beyond my shoulder.

Pressed against my inner left thigh, I can feel his arousal. Heart still roaring, my fingers dance across his stomach, watching Peeta twist into them with satisfaction, until my hand is slipping passed the waistband of his pants. He lowers himself closer to my body, his elbow failing him, and his face falls to my collarbone, his chest hot and heavy against my breasts. Already new desire floods through me and my center, not yet satisfied. No longer scared to want, or terrified of consequences.

The sounds I draw out of Peeta makes my heart beat impossibly faster. Moans and sharp, deep groans rise from his throat as his lips begin to revive themselves, smothering my neck and chest with wet, open mouthed, sucking kisses. Occasionally, a "_Katniss," _or a breathless_ "Yes," _slips through.

His flesh is hot against my fingers, hard, and when I withdraw my hand from his pants, Peeta abruptly grasps me around my body with his arms, staunching me up against him, his face finding mine. He moves against me, still wearing his pants, and I twist into him, trying in vain to be closer.

Our hips are off rhythm with each other, so it's as though it only elicits _just_ enough pleasure to drive me insane. Him too, by the way he groans into my hair. The grind is slow, at first, one of full strokes and thrusts, him just brushing passed all the sensitive places of my center.

My hands run down his back, to his pants, fingernails tearing them away. Peeta complies, wriggling out of them, kicking them off the bed, then capturing my lips in the first hard and needy kiss he's given, as all in one move, he's inside and I'm clinging to his shoulders with claws.

It burns some on the initial movement, but as he starts a steady rhythm, my hips rising and falling to his call, the burn turns into an ache. The pleasure I'd been seeking from the moment I threw myself at him, finally rouses from deep inside my belly. I forget to think of anything else, it just feels good, aching, throbbing, warm; the same pleasure as before that could never stop, that would ebb and flow and then wash over me once more.

When Peeta's hand finds my center and rubs at me, I gasp into his neck, then sink my teeth into the flesh there, to hold back a shout of pleasure and encouragement. I merely increase our tempo, riding him faster, trying to make up for the suddenly burning hardly detectable pleasure that seems to tease me. That I find I want. All I want.

Peeta's hands that push against my middle back, pulling me into him, run up to my shoulders then bury themselves into my hair, twisting into the dark locks, as we both fall more heavily into the cot, still withering together, but closer.

I don't want it to end when I can feel the rise nearing, when Peeta's pacing increases so much I know he's close, too. I want to hold onto this limbo of pleasure rolling over me. Selfishly never let go. To use such physical pleasure to hide from troubles. To feel him, closer, better.. so.. my cry of release is muffled by Peeta's mouth, as I feel the breath rush out of him, his hips giving one or two last jerks, before he collapses against an arm curled underneath my head.

There is a moment of quiet, aside our harshened breathing, as Peeta lips travel from my mouth across my cheek, to my ear, his face nuzzling against mine. I realize I'm still clutching his back so tightly I've left fingernail scratches, so I let them fall to my sides, exhausted, throbbing with the pulse in my wrists.

Peeta smiles into the skin beneath my ear, a huge smile, I can feel. His breath is hot in my ear. "Is this what I get every time you leave me behind?" he whispers. "Because if I knew that I would have sent you to District Twelve way before Madge."

I shake my head slightly, a small smile tugging at my lips before I can suppress it. "No," I say.

"Oh, then it must have been because..?" he trails off, hoping for an answer.

"Because I like you," I tell him, simply.

"Just like?" He sounds reproachful, wounded, but jokingly so.

"Unfortunately. There's another guy.. a Peacekeeper. Coel Meddek."

"Sounds like a lucky man."

I shake my head, unable to keep the game going. The absurdity of the idea that I would leave Peeta for a random Peacekeeper I'd met while captured within the Capitol suggest wrongness on all levels. Also, my mind flits to all the memories of us in the shower room; the first time I encountered him and he pulled me to the floor, as I tried to attack him, when we lost ourselves in heated kisses, him telling me of Prim and Mother and Gale, the talk we had about _'our baby girl'.. _Vincent..

Suddenly, I'm sad. Again.

Peeta hears my sigh and he counters it with his own. "Tell me what you find out in District Twelve," he says, rolling away from me for the first time, pulling out, and I feel an instant bareness and coldness as the air rushes up to take his place above me. He lays on his side just next to my shoulder. Awkwardly sprawled as not to put any weight on his upper body. I catch a wince before he hides it. "Come back soon." One of his hands touches me lightly on the cheek, and I trap it there, pressing it into my flesh.

"I'll come back as soon as I can," I tell him. _I won't wait another six months to see you._

"And if you don't," Peeta says, pulling me against him with his other arm and nuzzling my neck with his face, "I'll just come after you and find you myself."

A deal, then. And I content myself over that.

A few minutes later I pull myself away from Peeta to find out my stomach is in fact very sore from our strain of physical activity. I can't imagine how his shoulders feel, so I pick up his clothes for him and help him pull the shirt over his head. When we're both properly covered, Peeta maneuvers back into the blankets and I slide in next to him, despite the wetness in my underwear that urges me to leave him to take a shower. I decide I can shower later, right now exhaustion is tugging at my eyelids.

I dream the same as I did this morning, of being lost in a tunnel with endless directions that lead toward colored lights. Knowing I can not trust them or Effie, I step toward a tunnel that is unlit. Darkness incarnated. Calling to me, urging me onto its path. I glance at the other lit tunnels, distrust them, and decide I'd been looking for the wrong path all along.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

_**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

A/N: And we are just lumbering right along. This chapter is a bit Madge/Prim centric. I thought it nicely counter acted all the Peeta/Katniss last chapter. I would love to hear your thoughts on this chapter, reviews are what keep me writing. Sorry for typos. Thank you for reading. I hope Gale isn't OCC in an outrageous way, but I like to think this behavior is not beyond him. Though I hate him, I respect his character and cringe at the way some people make him out to be. Same goes of Primrose. As for Katniss, we're always developing her (and as you can imagine the appearance of the most influential person on her (Prim) will obviously be cause of new settlement or solid ground) and also big changes to someone's life mean big changes to them. -Taryn(:

I'll ask you one questions that will only make sense to those worried; _would I really forget Peeta? _You should know me better.

* * *

Chapter Fourteen

Madge stands on her tip toes, leaning forward slightly, arms extended a few inches away from her sides and the sight of it is enough to make my chest feel as though ropes are wound around it and someone from behind me is pulling them as tight as they can.

I feel an unspeakable urge to go to her, and comfort her in someway, but I don't. I stand stiffly where I am, in the back, as Madge throws a handful of dirt over the grave of her mother and father. They don't get any special inauguration or ceremony or coffin. The soldiers of 13 put the bodies in their graves within the same body bag the Capitol had delivered them in. Afterward, she got ten minutes, and then the soldiers are laboring over the shallow grave, again, using shovels, sending annoyed glances at the daughter that hovers a little too close, crying silently. Standing as though she's about to take flight, reminding me of Rue and Prim, so much.

At the thought of Prim, I turn my head slightly. I eye the refugee camp in the distance, that has taken over the Seam. Hundreds of elderly men and women, and children, pregnant mothers, ill men. A few have strayed toward us. They watch Madge and the soldiers with apprehension, but most of all, they stare at me. Katniss Everdeen, with her short braid tucked underneath a cap and her torso wrapped tightly in an old hunting jacket, that I'd retrieved from my old victor house; I'd moved the hunting jacket there before the Quarter Quell which seems a hundred years ago that I was the same girl. I'm not the same girl, and every inquiring, uncertain look from the refugees only seems to confirm that.

It makes me nervous. Haymitch said that 13 would send a hovercraft and aboard it will be my mother and Prim. It seems appropriate they would come to me in 12, rather than me going all the way to District 13. I would have gone to them, but I was worried. Peeta makes District 13 sound awful and I don't want to risk it; Coin might trap me there, ban hovercraft movement, separate me from Peeta. If I wasn't assured by Madge that we would return from this trip to bury her parents, I wouldn't have come.

We arrived only half an hour ago which seems too long already. In that time we stood side by side as the soldiers dug the grave, placed the bag within it and now they're reburying it; it seems to be taking forever, as I watch Madge slowly crumble from flight. Madge sits on the dirt when they finish, raking a hand through the soft and upturned soil. I come near when the soldiers, mud stained and heavy footed, walk away. I see from over her shoulder that she is drawing their names in the dirt, in curly letters. At the end she draws a lopsided picture of a heart.

"I think my mother would be glad," whispers Madge. "She always told us she wanted to be buried in the Meadow."

"Better than the coal mines," I say, thinking of my father.

"Yes," she sighs, "better than the coal mines."

There is silence. Far off I can hear a mockingjay singing in the cold breeze, beyond the charred and smoke-stained electric fence. I lift my head to eye the part of the fence that was broken, pushed over, torn down, to allow the living citizens of 12 to flee their burning home. Gale in the lead.. _where is he now? _My eyes dance to the small herd of refugees that have left behind their muddy, ashy Seam, with downtrodden tents and tarps, ropes of drying clothes, buckets of rain water, just to stare at me. Most look away when my steely gray eyes meet theirs, but others smile stiffly, or wave, or glare.

None of them my long lost best friend.

"Katniss?" asks Madge.

"Yes?" I say, still examining the distant refugee camp. It's a messy place, a hurried maneuver. I keep wondering why there aren't any citizens from 12 here, where they belong. Do they really like 13 enough to never return or are the bad memories..

"If I die, will you take me here? Will you bury me in the Meadow?" Madge's words bring my head back around, focused. She's staring up at me, with emotionless blue eyes. They fall back to the grave at my mystified expression. "I know we aren't that much friends.. but you're my only friend, Katniss. I.. don't know anyone anymore. Most everyone from town is dead. My parents. I'm not important to the Capitol anymore or to–"

"You're not going to die," I tell her. My mind flits to Rue. Rue, who I promised to protect. _Vinny, who I promised to protect._ Odds, my heart twists. "No," I say louder, and Madge looks to me. "We both survived the Capitol. You and me and Cinna and Jo. If we can survive that, we can outlive this war. We're going to see the Capitol burn just as we saw our home burn," and my voice drops into a dangerously hateful voice that I'm sure I would have hidden better if Peeta were around. "You're important."

"Coin says I can't be in the squad."

"What squad?"

"The victor squad?" says Madge, and she stands up, brushing the mud off her pants, swiping nervous palms against her thighs. "It's for the propos she wants you to do. Haymitch told me about them and he said that Coin has only given permission for you, Peeta, Finnick, Boggs, and a handful of other high ranking soldiers, that includes Gale, to be in them. Not me. I'm not a part of this coming fight, but I'm glad I got to be there for you within the Capitol.. I think my place is.. not there anymore. I–"

"You want to stay here. Help the refugees." I'm not guessing. I've learned to know Madge.

Her smile is apologetic. "I need to do something. And I feel.." she looks about herself. To the trees in the distance, the recently rained on town that is now a blob of wet ash and charred wood, the untidy formation of tents across the Seam. I know what she means, as I draw in the smell of damp pine and taste the puddles within the Meadow, a coldness leaking through my hunting jacket, hinting to the coming winter.

It feels nice here. Open, wet, free.. green. A district long abandoned by the Capitol. Not like District 3 where you see soldiers everywhere and the smoking remnants of war on the horizon. No, here it feels like a battle long over. A finished quarrel. A place for shelter. A haven, just as the refugees knew it would be. If I didn't have to leave I would stay. If Peeta and Vincent weren't waiting on me, and President Snow didn't still exist for me to destroy, I would stay here and never leave. So instead of growing upset at Madge, I nod at her, understanding. She offers me a hug, and I give one, grudgingly. Madge pulls away, kisses my cheek and then distracts me by pointing behind my back.

I'm nearly thrown off of my feet. "_Katniss!_" Prim's arms throw themselves around me before I can brace myself and I stumble. Thankfully another arm shoots out to help my balance, a heavy warm arm that wraps around my shoulders as Prim clings to my torso. For a moment Gale and Prim hugging me is all I need. Both my arms snake around my sister and my head falls to Gale's shoulder.

When I open my eyes a few moments later I take in Prim first. Her hug feels the same as they used to be but she doesn't look the same. Prim is still blonde, but it's no longer bleached from the sun. Instead, the hue is toned down, the locks weaved into a more sophisticated braid down her back, the old pig tails gone with the two or three freckles that once lightly danced under her eyes.

_It doesn't matter,_ I tell myself. _It's Prim. She's still Prim._

So I pull her closer and refuse to let go until I'm sure she's in need of air. When I do pull back, I take a moment to glance at Gale. He's grown a bit. Still looks the same person, though, handsome, dark featured. I wonder what he sees as he smiles down at me; does he note the bags under my eyes, how pale I am from living in a cell for so long, how short my hair is compared to what it used to be?

I look away from him. Back to Prim, who clutches both my hands into hers. I notice her clothes. White. As white as a Peacekeepers uniform and I feel an urge to flinch, a blood stained Head Peacekeeper Brock flashing into thought. But I remind myself he's dead. Plutarch killed him.

I smile, when I recognize the clothing for a doctors rather than a law-enforcers. Peeta told me she was studying to be a doctor. "You're so grown up," I tell her, momentarily touching the tip of her braid and twisting it around a finger.

"So are you," says Gale. There's something in his voice that causes me to look at him. Not angry, but resigned, almost. Hurt, a little. Worried, too. I try to decipher all of him in that one look into his grey eyes, but Prim demands my attention.

"I missed you so much, Katniss," she tells me. "I waited everyday for there to be news."

I run my fingers through hers and grip them. A tight anguished ball rolls in my chest, for love of Primrose. Every whole, untainted piece of Prim. Everything I'm not. "You did?" I ask, softly. "When you could have been healing all those other people out there who need a doctor like you?"

"_Everyday_." Her smile is so bright, so impossibly honest. There is modesty in the flush that appears, "I'm only a nurse," she tells me, then I catch a new flicker of meaning behind her eyes, "And you needed me more than all those other people."

I want to tell her no. I want to tell her that I don't need her, that she shouldn't make sacrifices for me, but the words stick fast in my throat. _No, Prim. I'm fine. It's me, Katniss, the same big sister you have always had. Who doesn't need help. Who can take care of herself and you and mother all by herself. Who's strong and healthy and smart. Who isn't broken or ever scared._

Don't you remember?

My mother appears behind Prim, having crossed the Meadow much slower than Gale and my little sister. Prim pulls away slightly, though I still hold fast to her hand, when my mother hugs me. I use one halfhearted arm to hug her back. "I'm so sorry for your son," she breathes into my ear, where no one can hear and she squeezes me tighter. As if she understands. As though she were wishing to help in someway. A mother trying to sympathize with her daughter that has become a mother far too soon and in the worst way imaginable.

One of her hands linger over my stomach, as if to barely broach the subject. I might have been offended, if anyone else did this, but the genuine sincerity in her eyes.. the fact that we have never been on good mother-daughter terms.. that I've never let her mother me, it seems to make a difference. I'm relieved she won't scold me for being so irresponsible, that she won't pretend it never happened, acknowledges the life of her grandson, when she'd failed so many times in the past to acknowledge her own children.

I say nothing. Madge must sense a need for intervention because she steps forward and offers my mother a smile and Prim a hand. Gale gives her a peculiar look. "Face paint?" he asks her.

Madge's smile dampens slightly. The picture of a sun, drawn on her cheek with yellow seems to distract from the sadness in her eyes. "Peeta did it," I speak up, "I think it's wonderful." I remember this morning, when I was forced to say goodbye to Peeta and Madge had come to tear me away. Peeta saw the bandage on her face and the way she avoided his gaze for it. He suggested something else, something better... brighter. Something that didn't suggest the burn mark was a wound that needed wrappings, but it was merely in need of improvement. Someone got him his paints, and he drew a laugh out of Madge when he traced a few examples on paper; a strawberry, a dead squirrel, a flower, a sun. She chose the sun.

Right now her flushed cheeks are only pinkening the sun, creating a sunset appeal. Shame and embarrassment surfacing on her face as Gale only continues to look confused, eyebrows knit together. He's probably thinking this isn't a time for face paint. That Madge is the same silly girl from town, the pampered daughter of the mayor.

It's so strange to see Gale, and to still know his thoughts. We're still best friends, I can feel, but I also feel a gap. A barrier thrown up between us. A rift. Something _I_ put there.

"We have lunch on the hovercraft," Prim says, when an awkwardly long silence threatens to swallow us. "We're landed on the other side of the Seam." Gale latches onto the excuse to get moving and takes the lead. I lag a few steps behind, pulling Prim into my side, still holding her hand. Madge and my mother follow more slowly.

Lunch is pleasant enough. Prim fills any silence with her talk of school and District 13, and Gale tells me about the refugee camp, how it all works, though I only asked for Madge's benefit. My mother is quiet, every so often offering words. No one mentions my Vincent. Prim asks briefly where Peeta is and I tell her he's in District 3, recovering. "He was injured?" asks Gale.

I look to him. Try to understand the emotion in his eyes. Concern? No. Worry? No. I don't know. I'm actually slightly confused as to why Gale doesn't already know this. Does he know about..? My voice is groveled. "He was too close to the mansion when it happened. He'll recover."

"That's good," Prim says when Gale nods wordlessly, holding my gaze, as if I'm not saying something. "Tell him I say hi." My eyes drop to Prim, then fly back to Gale.

"He says hi," I remember suddenly. "Peeta does."

Gale's smile is fake and his jaw is locked. "Tell him I say congratulations."

I stiffen. I'm no messenger. But I don't say this aloud. My fists that curl on the top of the table is enough for Gale to know he's said something out of line, or chose the wrong tone of voice. Really, that's not it though. _Congratulations for what? _For our son? For getting me back? Something else?

After lunch Gale leads us to his tent where he's been staying. It's small and cramped and still damp from the rain. He offers my mother a seat on the only chair within the low-ceilinged establishment, but she reclines it softly and says she wants to go around and check on some of the refugees. Madge takes the seat in her place, while Gale and Prim and I sit on the ledge of his hard cot, that is an excuse of a bed.

I'm not afraid of awkwardness with Prim sitting close at my side. She tells me about Buttercup, that awful cat that I've never really liked, and how Peeta and Gale got him for her. To Gale's apparent embarrassment, though I do catch a smirk on his lips, Prim also tells an animated tale of what happened the night the bombs fell. Madge is ghostly eyed throughout the whole thing, no doubt remembering it differently.

Madge asks Gale about her staying here and helping in someway. He is startled, but when he looks to me, as if for an answer, I feel heartened. Gale still turns to me, and that's enough. I nod, and he nods to Madge, though still looking taken aback. He tells her all in a fluster what she might be able to do. There are tents for girls her age that have shown up alone. She could stay there.

As Madge asks for a little more detail and Gale tells her all the rules around here, Prim curls even closer into my side and I clutch her head to my chest, stroking her hair, just like old times. If I close my eyes I can imagine Vincent in her place, or perhaps just there, in this tent with us.

"Katniss?" Prim whispers below the sound of Madge and Gale's voices.

I feel like Katniss. The girl who belongs on this space of land, within the Seam, surrounded by the two friends I've had since childhood. Prim in reach.. "My little duck?"

"I'm sorry.." Prim presses her face more into my torso, clutching me tighter. "I'm sorry about your baby. I wanted to meet him," and I realize she's crying. Only Prim would cry for me like this. Sweet, darling Prim who used to try to heal the animals I was teaching her to shoot. I realize with a thick throat that despite how much she will grow and see the horrors of the world, and over come them, she won't stop being that sweet person.

"You will," I say, with every amount of determination I can summon. "You'll meet him. I'm going to do everything I can to get him back, even if it means breaking a lot of rules." And I know it's true. Laws have never stood in my way before. When they told me I couldn't keep Peeta I opted to kill myself, breaking their law in a way that belittled them. When they condemned me to death in the Quarter Quell, I escaped their arena, against their greatest efforts to trap me. When they take my son and try to keep him for themselves, I will burn them to the ground and make sure my hands are running red with my revenge.

Even if it means breaking Peeta's heart.

"Do you remember when I made you promise me.." says Prim, trailing off when she feels my hand freeze against her hair. Guilt claws itself up my throat. "You do," she accuses.

"I do."

Prim squeezes me tighter. "I'm glad you didn't."

_I didn't?_

"Katniss?" I lift my head, eyes still perplexed, to acknowledge Gale. "Do you think we could go for a walk? Just a small one? Through the woods, like old times."

I'm reluctant to go both because I don't want to leave Prim and I'm not sure what I'll need to say to Gale when we're alone. Madge assures me she'll watch over Prim and they'll go look for my mother. "Okay, like old times," I say and we all depart.

Prim and Madge head further into the refugee camp while Gale and I go straight for the Meadow. We don't talk, walking side by side, my fingers clutching the edges of my father's hunting jacket and Gale's hands shoved deep in his pockets. We don't look at each other, the most awkward pair heading off toward the trees, stiff and sidling along.

Once we hit the tree line Gale picks up pace. I force myself to keep up with his long strides, but each sharp movement makes me wince on the inside. I think he realizes this when he abruptly stops and turns to me. "Were you too close, too? When the mansion collapsed? Were you hurt?" They aren't intensely asked, but simple inquisitions, true curiosity. Worried about the pain I just showed.

_Doesn't he make the connection? _My mother and Prim knew about the baby. Gale has to. "No. I wasn't too close."

"But you were hurt?"

"A lot of people were hurt, Gale."

Silence. So quiet I can here the subtle dripping of left over rainwater falling from the leaves hanging over our heads. We're at least ten rows away from the district, and I catch a glimpse of some animal whisking in a bush nearby, scenting us on the cool breeze.

Gale stands facing me, a tree behind my back, and I lean into it when he continues to trace his eyes over the clouds in the sky. Thinking. I decide I need to change the subject. "You'll watch over her for me, won't you?" I ask.

"Who? Madge?"

"Yeah." I meet his bewildered gaze, my eyes hardening in defense for Madge. "We shared a cell together. We're familiar with each other's pain. Will you make sure she's not forgotten?"

"If that's what you want," Gale relents. "I'll keep her close."

"Give her something important to do," I say.

"I'll let her help me with all my assignments, then." I know how much work that could be. To add a person onto his list of concerns. And I can't thank him enough, so I smile at him and Gale seems to sag in his own skin. "I thought I'd be able to snatch one out of you if I brought you out here," he says, smiling back.

"I haven't had much reason to smile recently."

"You're alive," Gale points out.

"Yeah," I say, laughing starkly. "For how long?"

Gale's face shifts; concern evident. I turn away and begin picking my way through the trees. He follows behind. I keep out a hand to brush against the wet bark as I pass, rough underneath my fingertips. My eyes are on the grass, when I'm violently taken back to a time before this; when I brought Peeta out here for the first and only time. I change directions so abruptly Gale nearly trips over me.

"Where are you going?" he asks, trying to keep up with my faster pace, twisting around trees, ducking underneath branches. I jump over a brush of thorns, and nearly cry out when I turn my torso too much, making my stomach throb enough that I think it's possible I reopened my scar. I continue anyway, teeth clamped into my cheek.

"Katniss?" Gale asks, for the fifth time.

"I'm looking for something," I tell him.

I find the sward where I kissed Peeta; a kiss that Peeta claimed the first of many real ones, the beginning of our unravel, leading to this moment. I go straight for the hollow log. Wet dirt and leaves grasp at my fingers as I reach around the empty space. The arrow must have been knocked off to the side, but everywhere I peer in and my hand claws, there is nothing. It's empty. My father's favorite bow and last remaining arrow, gone.

Gale must see the paleness of my cheeks. "What is it that you're looking for?" He eyes the hollow log, the grassy sward. I've never brought him here. There's nothing unremarkable about this place to him. This was my place, with my things, my memories.

But it seems that's not true. _Who would take my father's things? _Was it possible that some refugee traveling between districts on foot came across this specific place, this log, and took them without thinking? I'm not expressly angry, more winded by the effect, so I slump to the grass, leaning against the hollow log and stare up at the overcast sky.

Gale sense the need for stillness and places himself on the ground, cross-legged in the middle of the grass. Where Peeta once sat, right after expressing a wish to draw my woods. My eyes fall to Gale, grey colliding with grey. "Did you take it?" I ask.

"Take what?"

He didn't. "Nothing." I look to a point beyond Gale's face. "It seems everyone is taking things from me."

"I'm not," Gale says, though confused by my statement, he knows he wants to comfort me. "I don't want to take anything from you, Catnip." My lips tug at the old nickname. "I just want to help you."

"Will you help me kill Snow?" I ask, simply. "Because I'm going to."

"I'll help." Gale's voice is full of malice, but lightly so, because there is also an underlying tone that confesses to me his utmost loyalty. He wants to kill Snow because he has always been filled with a fire that fuels hate. But he wants to kill Snow also because I've asked, because of what Snow's done to him and his family in the past, so he can destroy the Capitol as he'd always ranted about in these same woods when we were just children.

"I'll need you," I say, refocusing on his face. "I can't count on Peeta for this."

"That's a first," says Gale, a slight smile touching his expression. There is surprise deep in his eyes, that someone other than me would never have noticed. I can feel an unease rise in my stomach. Gale can't still want me.. could he? Would I be stupid to not know it? Do men want women who've had babies with other men? Maybe he thinks the Capitol forced me into it during the Victory Tour or before the Quarter Quell. Could he think Peeta forced it on me?

I close my eyes at the thought of anyone thinking such dark thoughts about him. My hands link together in my lap, wringing tightly. I force all my emotions to my stomach and keep them off my face. Gale probably still sees my pain, but my appalling hatred and anger, thanks to both Snow and Peeta, has been taught to hide dangerously underneath the surface of my face, never able to betray me again to others. Never able to warn people to back off until it's too late and I'm close enough to attack.

"I love him," I say, with no amount of ease. It helps that I can't see Gale. I think of yesterday; Peeta kissing my neck, his hands caressing my thighs, face nuzzling my breasts. "I love Peeta..." _too much. _"And I know.. _you_ know, I love you, too. I always will. We're best friends, but–"

"But you don't love me the way you love him," Gale deadpans.

My eyes fly open. I observe regret and disappointment on his features. Nothing that says he's about to fly into a rage that I'm unable to pull him from. He's not throwing himself across the distance between us to kiss me, to guilt me into owing him. "Yes," I breathe. _Can you accept it?_

Gale's eyes wander to the sky. His fist is pulling at the grass, ripping out handfuls of greenery that scatters in the breeze. I feel cold and damp in the wet sward suddenly and I pull my father's jacket closer to my neck and face. "I don't want to lose you, Gale." _I've already lost too many. One too many._

"Haymitch told me not to get hopeful." Gale shakes his head, as though he is mad at himself for not taking the drunk's advice to heart. His face ducks and his hands are now passing over the blades of grass as though caressing them. Apologizing for ravaging them moments beforehand.

"Did you?" I ask, my voice sounding choked.

His eyes cast to the left, and his mouth gives a bitter twist. "No."

I swallow thickly. How do I do this? How do I tell him I need him to help me do the most important thing in my life, while also telling him I don't want him the way he has wanted me for a long time. I need him to help me kill Snow, because Peeta won't.. I can't let Peeta.. get so close, be put in such danger, and see me turn into a monster that only comes out at the thought of Snow living, the sight of my stomach, my son in his arms.

My eyes must be bright with my fever because when Gale glances up at me, he stalls and his eyes stay there, staring at me. "I wanted to deny it, when I saw the interview of you. I blamed him for a long time. I still want to, too. But I know I can't. And it seems so easy to ignore it, to pretend.. that–"

"It did happen," I break in, _I won't let myself forget Vinny the way my mother opted to forget her children, I won't forget him just because he's not with me, that doesn't make him not real. _"I had a baby, Gale. I have a baby. Peeta and I have a son and I'm not going to let you pretend it didn't happen to make you feel better."

"I know," Gale sighs. "I know that. It's so hard to think about, to imagine you.. Catnip.. Katniss Everdeen, has a baby. And with Peeta, too." There is a light, brief amusement to his voice. "I imagined it once before, but you were older and it wasn't..." _Peeta's. _

I have a sudden, horrible thought that I can hardly bear, and my shoulders turn to stone. "Gale–"

"I know," he says. Fierce, unbreakable Gale, stronger than the wind storm he's named for, softens in the face when I meet his gaze. Defeat is in his voice, the slope of his shoulders, the white of his knuckles as he clenches his fists. "I know it won't ever be me. It never was. And I know he makes you happy, that you wouldn't have went through with it if you weren't sure. I'm content enough with that, though not happy with it. He'll treat you right, keep you alive. And the kid.." Gale falters some, not sure where to stand. Already he's exceeded my expectations. I'm more miffed than happy. Gale has changed, too, in the time that has passed. _When did he decide to let me go? The moment he realized I let myself make love with Peeta, when I'd refused Gale even kisses? When I appeared on television, heavy with Peeta's love child? _I have no doubt that Haymitch has told him how close Peeta and I are within District 3.

I'm not sure what to say, other than to blink at him, as he finds the need to continue to speak.

"I'm sorry about what happened. And I really mean it. The thought of the Capitol doing that to you, to anyone.. ripping..." he breaks off, genuinely angry, his voice bit off with the gnash of his teeth. I feel my own anger surge to the surface, wanting to work off of his own; it's always been that way, us feeding each other. "I'll kill Snow if you help me get close enough to him. Sometimes I feel like Coin is locking me away here. Ever since I failed to get her District Ten she's considered me useless... and now that you're back.." his eyes find mine, force me to meet his gaze. "I don't feel as lost."

And I know what he means. The war does not seem so oppressively large when Gale and I vow to each other that the only thing that matters is for us to kill Snow. There's the districts, there is Coin and Violet and all those soldiers, but they seem insignificant when the bright light of my anger is focused on Snow. "It'll be hard, to get to him," I say. "He'll be paranoid now that we've managed to destroy his mansion. If people already believe the rebels can reach into the Capitol and cause that much damage this war is going to get more vicious and fast."

"It already is.. the reports I'm getting.." Gale shakes his head. "The rebels and the Capitol are fighting tooth and nail for District Five. That's where most of the districts get their power, and the same goes for parts of the Capitol that don't have a back up generator. Have you heard? They know about Coin and Violet and there's some annoyance about them all being female.. even you. They've started saying something about how..." Gale doesn't seem to realize the sicker I get at his words. "..all I know is that I got a report about them scavenging the battle fields and collecting all the corpses of females and then hanging them outside their camp off of the trees and tied to posts..."

"Gale," I say, warning him, the images of this flitting into my head. "That's why we need to kill him."

"There's a lot of reasons we need to kill him," Gale spits.

"I need my son back."

Gale eyes are hard, but bright, too, not upset at me, at the Capitol. "Yes," he says.

"It's a long path, and as I was saying, a _difficult_ one. There are horrible things that are going to happen and that we're going to see." The same way my path through the Hunger Games was and I needed Peeta to help me through it. "I'll need you there.. can you do it? Are you willing to.."

"All every path needs is but one step at a time." Gale voice is strange, and I am silent, until he smiles, carefully. "My father used to say that." He never talks about his father. The same way I never talk about mine. There's a lot of things my father used to say, that Gale's never heard before. "'And all every path needs is a companion with which to share it.'"

I'm pleased to know he's not even going to second guess the decision. He won't question the motives, what they're driven by. Yet something in me warns me not to let his words mean too much. I have to remind him of his understanding from before. "But you know that at the end..."

"All I want is to share the path with you. I can't let you take all the glory of the kill," his smile is slightly more relaxed, a glint of teasing in his eyes. "I know I can't be your destination. I've always known that, somewhere in me. Ever since.." Gale never tells me the moment he stopped hoping for my recuperate romantic feelings.

"Think we should start getting back?" I say after a small, comfortable silence.

Gale looks relieved. "Yeah. Those refugees can't go a decent amount of time without someone from District Two fighting with an outlying refugee."

"You have refugees from District Two?" I ask. I get up and offer Gale a hand, pulling him to his feet.

"Unfortunately. Some of them are decent, normal. Others are predictably prejudice. Think they're better than the others. Overall there isn't that much of a problem but we've got an old man who simply refuses to speak to anyone who isn't up to his standards."

"Hmm." Throughout the walk we don't go into any topics that are personal or prying, though I'm sure he's curious about what went down the day of the rescue, as well as throughout my whole imprisonment, and I'm curious as to how he managed District 13, but he simply tells me how his mother and siblings are adjusting to 13 and how much he likes that they live there; safe, well-fed. It makes me glad that after today Prim and my mother are going back there to continue their healing careers.

By the time we reach the Meadow I feel alright where Gale Hawthorne is concerned. I tell him that I'll be back soon, or someone will collect him for me, so that we can go through with our new pact. Somehow manipulate the others into our favor. Or perhaps we'll just recklessly throw ourselves against their orders. For now he remains here and I return to Peeta, or to training, really.

Within the Meadow I spot two blondes sitting near the burial site. Prim has collected a handful of wilting poppies, that have faded in color somewhat, and is now twisting them into a crown wrought of green and red. She smiles up at Madge, who watches Prim's swift, neat fingers with interest, and my sister raises the finished crown to Madge to settle it amongst her messy sun-colored hair. I can't hear what they say from where I am, but Madge shakes her head while Prim earnestly leans forward on her knees toward Madge. And I remember what Madge would say to her head doctor. Something about ugly and unwanted and unimportant and disgusting and labeled.. with lots and lots of tears, too.

Here, in the meadow, somehow it seems she brightens it. Smiling down at my little sister in strained modesty, genuine gratefulness in her blue eyes, the sun painted across her face giving her a look of peace, almost as much as the flowers tangled amongst her hair gives her a piece of organic beauty. I can't take her to war. "Make sure she stays here," I say to Gale as we near the two blondes, but still out of ear shot. He nods curtly.

Primrose comes to me and I hug her, unwilling to let go. We still have an hour or so left. Gale, probably hoping to get himself free time to think over our conversation, or eager to show to me he's still willing to listen to my pleas, he offers to give Madge a tour of the camp and introduce her to all the other soldiers that are stationed in 12. Flushed with her surprise (as well as since Gale was looking at her face, and she's still put off when anyone does) she follows him and they disappear from sight. Prim tells me our mother is just a few tents away from the Meadow and that we could go see her as she works over a girl who's got a cough, but I decline.

Instead, I opt to just spend the rest of the time I have with her. "That was a nice gift you gave Madge," I say when I pull away from her hug to look down at her. "How did you know she needed that?"

"I could tell," Prim says, shrugging. "I remembered that when we were little and you were looking down dad would make those and give them to us. He taught you, and you taught me, and I've already taught Posy." She's grinning up at me, proud of herself for spreading the knowledge, for remembering. Happy to make Madge smile, even though she cannot imagine the depths of Madge's hurt. Even I don't know what Head Peacekeeper Brock did to her, what he might have shouted at her to make her feel so worthless; I'm momentarily sick to my stomach because for the first time my mind snags onto the fact that Madge rarely showed up to the cell with bruises or mutilations, rather she was surprisingly whole and untouched, _outwardly_.

The thought then makes me wordlessly furious. I have to stop the contorting of my fists or the tightening of my facial muscles, so that Prim can't see my anger. I don't want her to mistake it to be directed at her. Most of it is directed at Snow; minimally myself for having been a reason why Madge was even captured. And of course, Head Peacekeeper Brock. Who I see in my mind now, gently sweeping the bangs from the Avox girl's face. Unnecessarily touching her on the shoulder or thigh as he restrained and tortured her.

"Let's go for a walk," I suggest, teeth clenched. "I need air, and to be moving." Prim doesn't argue. Instead of going into the woods or toward people, Prim and I walk side by side toward town. She's always one or two steps ahead, bouncing back one to keep pace with my slower gait.

Around us I see something entirely different from when Snow brought me to 12. The sea of gray that was once the ashes of a civilization destroyed, are now just swept to the sides of the paved and graveled paths, muddy and sucking at any boots that dare trod there. All the remains or corpses have been removed by soldiers from 13. Buried somewhere in a mass grave, no doubt. _Hopefully not the Meadow_, I pray, when I recall the other side of the Meadow with its newly turned soil just the same as Mr. and Mrs. Undersee's grave.

Prim talks. I'm eager to listen. Throughout the conversations my mind is branched into two halves. One half enthralled with her words, because I don't know if this is the last time I'll speak with her. If I die going after Snow, in search of Vincent, than I want Primrose to remember this quiet day in 12. Recall me as this, a Katniss who didn't cry, or throw things, or seem changed. But that's where the other branch is, lingering over the thought; _am I being myself or a facet? _When did hiding my emotions from my family to make them feel better turn into an act of love to deception?

Throughout the first half of my life I hid my thoughts about the Capitol, I learned to watch my words, and to keep my face smooth. Then the Hunger Games came and I was forced to hide myself even more, fit myself into the Katniss who pretended to love Peeta in hopes of saving Panem from falling to pieces. Throughout that time up to the Quarter Quell, I was conflicted. And I realize suddenly, with a start, that there aren't a hundred different pieces not fitting, but just two halves. But not in the sense of two different mes.. but just one. One that is made up of two halves; an angry half unafraid to show it and a composed half that has learned her whole life to tame herself. Two sides at war, one always overlapping the other and making me feel off-balance, or not myself. Either I'm too composed or I'm too angry.

_Where is middle ground? Haven't I always been this way? When will I stop being surprised that Primrose reads me better than anyone? Better than Peeta. Better than Gale. Better than me._

Prim stops in the middle of what she's saying at the sight of my smile. "What's so funny?" she asks.

"Not funny. Nothing funny." I overlook her again. She's filling out; a fact that makes me painful aware of how hard it is to keep males off of her from District 3. "You know I love you, right?"

"I love you, too," says Prim.

"I love you _so_ much," I tell her and pull her to me again. If I were her I'd be wondering what happened to the distant Katniss who could hardly pretend not to flinch away from hugs; though I've never hesitated to give her one. In fact, if I were her, I'd say enough already. Still, even with those thoughts in mind, I rest my cheek to her hair, and close my eyes. _Never change._

I can hear the smile in her voice. "When Haymitch told mom you might be emotional, I thought he meant you'd be upset." I scowl at the mention of my mentor. Gale talked of him too, and I let that slide. Now I wonder.. _will he ever stop meddling in my life? _I hadn't realized it was a lifetime commitment, mentor and tribute relations. "And then he told us what happened in the Capitol.. what that man Mr. Snow did.."

I laugh. And maybe it isn't the right moment. But she is the first person I have talked to in weeks who possessed the ability to say the President of Panem's name without spite or malice or regret. No, Prim says it wistfully, as though she feels bad for him.

"Now I _know_ something's funny," grumbles Prim, pulling away from the hug to examine my face.

I attempt to wipe away the smile. It's not that hard; conjure up Vinny and it slips through my fingers like smoke. "I just forget how nice it is to be around you," I tell her and she is appeased.

For the rest of an hour we wander about town, not really noticing the loss around us, but focused entirely on the sister we love walking at our side. We talk about nothing and everything. It's strange, because this isn't like our old relationship. Somehow–and I have no idea how–are relationship has grown and spread and strengthen over the time we spent apart. She has grown and I have grown a great deal; for the odds sakes, I'm a mother now, and she's spending her days healing people, changing and saving peoples lives with her swift, intelligent hands. When I reach out to hug her or touch her, it isn't to shield her from the world like it used to be, it isn't to preserve the fragile sweetness I've always idolized her to be, but it is just merely to feel her, savor the fact that this is my sister. Not so little. An equal to me in more aspects than I'm ready to accept.

When it's time to leave, both of us, Gale and Madge come to receive us. Madge is distracted by the sight of town, and the distant Victor's Village. She asks Gale abruptly what they are going to do about it; it seems they never got to that topic. By the time we reach the hovercrafts landed on the other side of the refugee camp, I know that 13 plans nothing for the future, because the war stands in the way of progress.

My mother comes, too, and has a list of things she hands to Gale; something about medicines he'll need to maintain any of the ill that reside here. He smiles, tucks it into his pocket, then turns to me for a goodbye. I hug him, and he murmurs in my ear to not forget to congratulate Peeta for him.

Madge's goodbye is short. She smiles, I smile back, and I tell her flowers suit her.

"Don't forget to take care of yourself," is my mother's only words to me, as we hug stiffly again. She's the first one on the hovercraft heading back to 13. Primrose remains behind a few minutes, me unable to let her go, stalling.

Eventually a soldier from my own hovercraft says that I need to go. Prim kisses my cheek, hugs Gale, and to Madge's obvious shock, nearly throws the poor blonde to the ground with a hug. Gale flings out a hand to steady the pair, before Prim pulls away, throwing Gale a grateful glance. The fact that she half runs up the ramp to the hovercraft makes my lips tug upward, at the reminder that she's still young.

"See you soon," Gale calls at me as I enter my own hovercraft. I wave behind my back.

Inside, a solider from 3 comes up to me. I know he's from 3 by his uniform, possessing the seal of the district right over the left breast. "This was given to me on direct orders that you received it personally," he says, handing me a folded piece of paper and then walking away.

I stare at it for several moments, uncertain, until another solider, this one from 13, snaps at me to find somewhere to be other than in the middle of the control room. I find a seat off to the side, in a shadowed corner, away from the windows. I don't open the note right away. I examine the outside for anything, but there is no signature. No picture or sketch or brand.

All I can think is the last time I received a note it told me that the Capitol stole my son from me.

Eventually I tuck it into my fist, eyes flying around, in search of the man who delivered it to me. Wouldn't he tell me if it was a message from President Coin? And what about Violet? Why would she feel the need to have it handed to me like this?

Throwing all uncertainty aside, I flip the note open and read the words quickly.

There is a set of numbers; a phone number, I think. And written after it; _call if you're ever in need of a friend. _The signature is Peacekeeper Leon's. I look up at the nearest person to me. A technician pilot. "Do you know where I can find Leon once we land in Three?" I ask them quickly.

The woman looks at me for a moment, then blinks. "You mean Violet's husband? No. He's not in Three anymore. He left with a group of refugees from District Five on their way to Twelve. Violet offered for him to take this hovercraft since there was a trip already planned, but he went off with the strangers anyway." Then as if a second thought, "Took the boy with him, too. Which is just illogical, considering all the dangers there are between Three and Twelve, not to mention the threat of getting lost or attacked by Peacekeepers.." the woman's voice becomes boring to me.

Instead, I'm staring down at the phone number. After everything my existence has put him through, especially the way I treated him the day of the rescue, I'm surprised he would leave this for me. Of course, it's not much, in the sense of aid or support, but the gesture is nice. I tuck the note into the pocket of my father's hunting jacket with content.

I decide today is a good day, a progressive day. A first of many.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

_**Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

A/N: I had to be done. It had to. I couldn't continue to have that loose end. I never liked her and I won't ever. -Taryn(:

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Chapter Fifteen

The moment I get back to District 3 I'm distracted and put to work. I throw myself into training with a vengeance. Eat, live, and breathe the workouts, drills, weapons practice, lectures on tactics.

Boggs, who has been put in training with us as a form of physical therapy, and to ease him back into work, is really the only other person within training that I know or acknowledge. The rest are random teenagers and young adults over the age of fourteen. Most of them are citizens of 3 or those from 5 that had stayed behind in hopes of learning to fight. Normally, Boggs tells me, Coin would just send these potential soldiers to 13 for real training, but since she's forced to station an education system here for my use (I refuse to go to 13 and leave Peeta behind) she figured making me work with others would make me friendlier. Somehow Finnick and I end up laughing over this idea at dinner.

During the day I'm forcing myself through every drill, at night I go to Peeta, sore and exhausted, and he'll rub the ache from my shoulders. He's full of amusement, remembering his days of training. He tells me I have it easy. Back in 13 Peeta tells me there is something called the Block, but he also confesses the tattoo on his arm used to list it as S.S.C., short for Simulated Street Combat. Deep in 13, where they've built an artificial Capitol city block. The instructor breaks them up into squads of eight and they have to attempt to carry out missions—gaining a position, destroying a target, searching a home—as if they were really fighting their way through the Capitol.

"That doesn't sound too hard," I say, leaning away from his hands kneading into my lower back. I roll over to face him. "It's just one block. If it were real, you'd be hopelessly lost. Trust me." _I tried running around the Capitol once, escaping the hands of many, and knowing how to maneuver one, people free block doesn't seem much help._

"But there's a catch," says Peeta, smiling. And he explains to me that the thing's rigged so that everything that can go wrong for you does. A false step triggers a land mine, a sniper appears on a rooftop, your gun jams, a crying child leads you into an ambush, your squadron leader—who's just a voice on the program—gets hit by a mortar and you have to figure out what to do without orders. "Part of you knows it's fake and that they're not going to kill you," he confesses, shrugging. "But if you set off a land mine, you hear the explosion and have to pretend to fall over dead. Finnick loved acting that out." But he also tells me how in other ways, it feels pretty real in there—the enemy soldiers dressed in Peacekeepers' uniforms, the confusion of a smoke bomb. They even gas them. "I suck at that," says Peeta, eyebrows knitting. "My thumb always gets tangled in the strap and then I get all panicky. Next thing I know, I waking up ten minutes later with the most wicked headache."

I take my chance. "I guess you're not cut out for fighting then." I reach a hand to his face, fingers dancing upward and spearing my fingers through his hair, since I'm fairly sure he can read my eyes, I keep them glued on my hand's action."That's okay, though." I let a ghost of a smile touch my face. "War's not for everyone. You can stay here and I–"

"You're not getting rid of me that easily," Peeta says. He traps my hand in his and pulls my fingers to his lips, pressing them there, before giving me back my appendage. "A little knock out gas isn't going to frighten me away."

I meet his challenging gaze. _Someday_, I promise to myself, before dropping my forehead to his chest and finding sleep. The next morning I slip from his arms while he is still sleeping, an impatient Boggs standing at the doorway.

The people who train us were brought out from 13, and they always complain about the lack of technology, since most of the time we are training out in the wild area beyond the district's reach. There is mud and cold weather and more often than not it's raining, and I return to Peeta with frozen toes and fingers. Finnick joins the ranks, though he already went through training. You wouldn't guess that by the way the trainer treats him. Seems he needs the extra help. When we run on the paved areas within the district him and another girl are the fastest. I'm fastest in the woods, slipping over the mud and making tight turns. But I can see him stumble under heavy weights sometimes; his muscle endurance suffered badly from the mutt snake venom and his lackluster recovery from it.

Often times I catch a camera crew taping us. Boggs and I on the makeshift firing range. Finnick and I racing. Me struggling to lift the weights Boggs can. It's part of a propos series to show the rebels preparing for the Capitol invasion.

On the whole, things are going pretty well. Madge called only once; she likes 12. Whenever a supply hovercraft comes from 13 there's always a letter from Primrose aboard it. I read them multiple times in a night before tucking them into the bedside table next to Peeta's cot. For awhile I felt bad about them, because Peeta didn't get any letters, didn't have any family to reach out for, but then Delly started writing him. Mostly because I think Prim had something to do with it. But at least he's happy.

After two and half weeks Peeta starts showing up for our morning workouts. The doctors say he will get along fine if he starts slow. The braces are off, but he's still constantly accompanied by a wince if he lifts heavy items higher than the chest region. Most days after lunch, I see him across the field, drilling with a group of beginners. He's within the only other group within 3 other than mine, full of recruits from other districts who are incompetent in and ignorant to the ways of a soldier.

After the first day, Peeta could barely lift his lunch tray.

When I confront Violet, the weakest link, about maybe pushing him back, she assures me that it's all for the camera. They've got footage of Annie getting married and Finnick hitting targets, but all of Panem is wondering about Peeta. They need to see he's still alive. That he's still fighting. They remember him from all the propos during my imprisonment and they favor him, are worried about him. I go to bed that night wondering how popular he really is among the rebels.

In my rare moments of downtime, I anxiously watch the preparations for the invasions. See equipment and provisions readied, divisions assembled. Since Peeta is finally not bed ridden he sits with me outside the warehouse and we watch others walk by. He points out things I don't know. About how you can tell when someone's received orders because they're given a very short haircut, the mark of a person going into battle.

At dinner we're usually all together, scarfing down food. Only yesterday Annie was sent away, at Finnick's reluctant request and he seems sad as he halfheartedly eats his beats. Throughout the meal I watch him and wonder why he doesn't see how easy he has it. I wish it was that easy for me. To simply tell Peeta to go to 13. Or rather, tell a group of soldiers to take him for me. I wouldn't need to take continuous jabs at him, to hint to him that I don't want him here. But he knows that I don't mean it personally, that it's just me needing him, and I need him _alive, _not dead in battle.

"Ease up," I say one day, a little too harshly to Peeta's trainer. A no-nonsense middle-aged woman we're supposed to address as Soldier York. She purses her lips at me as I stand there clutching my stomach, trying to catch my breath; I've just bailed out of running only after a mile. Peeta, however, doesn't take any pity on himself as he throws himself through a partnered obstacle course where it requires him not only to lift himself up using a metal bar, purely with his arms, and to launch himself over a ditch, but to help a partner do it as well.

"You're own training, Solider Everdeen," the woman tells me evenly, before she turns away.

I stomp away and ignore my own trainer's orders to get back to running. I find a gun and work on my aim until Finnick comes to find me and sits with me until dark calls us back to the district. That night, I kiss my way up Peeta's arms to his shoulders and he falls asleep in the middle of his lips locking with mine. I didn't mind.

Around week four I get a letter from Primrose telling me about her advancement in training. She's hoping they'll send her out with a active nursing group that are the type of healers who swoop in on a battlefield right after, or even during a fight. I seek out Haymitch for the first time in weeks. I'm a little hostile, nothing new, but in the end he swears that he'll do something about this. He earned some points for that. Not much, but some.

Boggs excels more than anyone in training, considering he usually is the trainer, not the trainee. More than once he's teaching others rather than allowing our actual trainer to. Peeta and him seem on good terms whenever our two groups collide. Otherwise I can't help but feel a bit guilty about Leon, and the shooting. Boggs doesn't seem to hold anything against anyone for that, not Violet, or me, so after awhile I begin to relax around him. He's not all that bad after all.

Vincent is always there in the back of my mind. Whenever I don't think I can run any longer or do one more push up or assemble a gun faster, Vincent comes to thought and drives me forward. Peeta, too, it seems. He talks about him at random times. When we pass each other between stations, and he tucks a stray lock of hair behind my ear, he'll murmur _Vinny_ underneath his breath; a mantra, a reminder. At night in his sleep, I can hear him muttering. Or when he wakes and I try to soothe him, he'll tell me about the dream, something usually about Vincent or me.

Nightmares still haunt me. Sometimes it'll be the Games, but more often or not, it's of Mr. Undersee, or Head Peacekeeper Brock or Madge or Cinna, and Vinny. Lots of Vincent or Primrose. All of them bloody, me too late, painful to the point of hysteria. They keep me up at night, even with Peeta there to comfort me. On bad days I show up to training grouchy and sleepless, determined to make it through the day without speaking.

It's one of those days when Johanna joins us. She's put into Peeta's group, because Coin refuses to start a third one. All morning a freezing drizzle has been dropping from the clouds, refusing to fall as proper rain but still soaking everything it touches. By noon everything is clinging to me uncomfortably and the sleek dampness of the ground causes Peeta to fall more than once with the disadvantage of his prosthetic leg. Every time he falls Johanna laughs, uproariously. It gets to the point that my jaw is clenched so tight that my hands can't seem to shove together the right pieces of the gun. To Peeta's valiant effort, he keeps getting back up and continuing on no matter how far behind he is or how long his time will be.

Everyone is soaking and mud-clad when the trainers finally relent to lunch. I throw all my things to the side and come to Peeta, jogging to catch up with him on his way back to the warehouse. We walk alone for several minutes, passing through the torn down district gate that opens up to the spilling effect that the rebels have made, throwing up everything they need right beyond it. Behind us, I hear Johanna and Finnick's voices, clearly arguing. "I don't see why they're so upset. I mean, it's not like they're missing anything good. All it does now is eat and sleep and need to be changed. Snow's doing them a favor!" she says and I hear Finnick say something to her about her lack of sensitivity.

_And who says Snow is doing all that, _I think, _who says he hasn't just left it somewhere to die?_

Peeta must notice my paleness because he pulls me to him and squeezes my waist. I don't miss the look he throws over his shoulder. We silently agree to spend lunch laying in his cot, not talking or touching, lost in our own thoughts.

Eventually it becomes evident Johanna has lost all sense of sensitivity, and sanity. She has a constant guard of two soldiers following her wherever she goes. Finnick tells me with a distant sigh that her head doctor thinks she's a psychopath of some sort; she's confessed to thoughts of shameless killing, dreams of slitting throats, and urges to strangle others. Heartless murders that she thinks she's done or caused. She tells a scary tale at lunch one day about a toddler she thinks she's poisoned before. Her eyes are bright and she's smiling through the whole thing; a mischievous and puzzled twist of her lips. I excuse myself from the table and Peeta isn't one step behind me.

True, Johanna was never the nicest or sincere or the sweetest, but she was never heartless. She never confessed to enjoying the act of killing others. Though in her first Hunger Games she displayed a wonderful knack of murder, I always put it off as her being just like me; a survivor. Whatever experiments Head Peacekeeper Brock, that man and woman, Vix and Tick, did to her has changed her. The doctors say she is hi-jacked. An act of torture where various strains of Tracker Jacker venom is injected into a person, causing many side effects, most of them physiological. One of their theories is that they distorted all her memories so that they are surrounded with murder, pain, and most apparently, acceptance to those acts. Approval of death. Most are baffled, because all Tracker Jacker torture seems inconsistent and they have no access to rehabilitation files, if there even is any.

What they know is that she has a lot of memory loss, or more accurately, distorted recollections. They'll try to cure her, but that seems hard. They've already found, when she first arrived, many different strains of Tracker Jacker venom in her blood that they have never seen before. One doctor suggests maybe it was altered in the sense that fear wasn't the key target. This theory seems to be proved wrong the day Johanna has a melt down over a spider and she has a mixture of a tantrum of rage and an anxiety attack, screaming and shaking herself, as though seeing things we don't.

My hope for her is not as high as it is for Cinna and Madge. Cinna, like Madge, has slipped effortlessly into his place. He's among the camera crew, designing clothes for me; armor, training outfits, anything he can. Often times I catch them filming me when I'm not at training. Most of the time I feel an urge to stop them; to protect Vincent, to just simply not do that anymore, to change this (the constant televised aspect of my life) but Cinna assures me they won't air anything he doesn't have my approval on. A lie. I catch a propo of Peeta and I, kissing. It's only in passing as I depart from Peeta's room, but it's still at a time I didn't know I was being taped. Cinna says he doesn't know anything about it.

A month and a half in, I'm getting impatient. I'm beginning to drive myself mad with thoughts of Vincent. _Where is he? How is he? What are they doing to him? How could this time have passed so quickly? Why am I doing this? _But I know why I'm doing this. I have to be strong. I can't just throw myself back into the Capitol in the same state that I left. I'll be doomed. Anyone with common sense wouldn't go from having a baby to fighting a war, especially without training, without learning how to even use proper weaponry. Six weeks seems like a such long time, though. I haven't ever seen my baby's face and it makes me scream at night, when I watch Snow throw him to the floor, his poor, fragile body breaking like glass.

To focus myself, to push out the bad, I listen to everything I can about the war. There is much talk of the most recent offense, which was to secure the train tunnels that feed up into the Capitol. Turns out we lost the battle in District 5, so the Capitol still has the power we tried to take; the only benefit is that we managed to tear up all the railways from District 3 to 12, meaning the only districts still connected to the Capitol are 1 and 2. All in all, broadly, we're in the lead. The Capitol has control over six districts; 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 10. The rebels have seven districts; 3, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, and 13. But they also have the Capitol, so that evens the scale. The hope is that the lack of train movement means that the Peacekeeper troops stationed far from the Capitol will starve from the lack of supply movement.

Study days make me the most restless, despite all the war information it provides me with. Every time I read something I get the feeling I'm not receiving the full story. Of course, I'm not. I shouldn't even expect it. These are the people who just might have traded my infant son for a handful of war prisoners. After the first three weeks, I give up on study days. This gives my head time to sit and broil in my worries, the thoughts I don't want, the nightmares.

I'm just about to snap, on a late study day, when Peeta unexpectedly exclaims, "I'm not good at this," and he throws down a book he'd been laboring over for the past hour. Finnick gives him a sympathetic look while still scribbling out his work. Others, who are actually trying to learn send him annoyed glances.

I've just been fiddling with my pen in all the time our peers have been working, so, pushing out all my previous meanderings, I smile at Peeta with a sense of understanding. "Me either."

"War sucks," he continues to say, gesturing a hand at the pages opened in front of him. "I've been learning about tactics and famous maneuvers and tricks and all I can do is try to find loopholes."

"Well that's what the tricks are, Solider Mellark," comments York from her seat near the door. My own trainer sits next to her, leaning back in his chair; they must hate study days as much as us. "Instead of throwing ourselves at an army that overpopulates ours, we make inferences and find tricks to go around them. That way we win using loopholes."

"But I'm talking about loopholes to loopholes," he says, confusing most everyone, even me.

"Explain," says York, and it sounds more of a careless order than a curiosity.

"I mean.." He hesitates, as if it just hit him the whole room is listening. Then he glances at the stack of reports in the middle of the table. He's been reading them for days. Nodding to himself, as if reassured, he looks back to York.

"Take District Five for example. The rebels were in possession of half the district before the real fighting started. Since all of the citizens rebelled within it, and it was only the Peacekeepers defending the Capitol's stake, the added soldiers sent by us made it so the rebels overpopulated the Peacekeepers five to one. Troop 345's squad leader decided that he wanted to use this advantage. In theory, it's good. But more often than anyone wants to admit it two or three of those five were children or elderly or ineligible men and women. Sure, they're still capable of holding a house all themselves, or a block. But they can't fight, they don't have guns.. they're a vulnerable point that we threw up as a blinking target. We risked them, when we had the citizens amass in the places we had control over in an attempt to hold ground. Since they didn't have enough weapons, and the troops were spread thin along the borders to protect all the unarmed, as well as the territory, all the Peacekeepers had to do was knock back one line of fighters, before it was open slaughter on the unarmed. Obviously they would retreat, surrendering."

A boy down the table mutters, "Yeah, so? We all know that. The squad leader messed up. You just repeated the report. I don't see a loophole."

Boggs steps in. "Where would the citizens go? Both Violet and District Thirteen don't have the hovercrafts to move that many anywhere. We can't even spare them for the refugees, who would risk the wilds rather than stay in the war zones."

Peeta turns to him, making a gesture with his hands that expresses a slight impatience, as if it bugs him that none of us sees what he does. "Where? Out of the way of the bullets." Peeta turns to the boy who spoke out first. "We disarmed their train system. There weren't that many Peacekeepers in District Five. None of them were famous or important. There weren't any hovercrafts that they could use to get word to the Capitol when they were out of supplies. A Peacekeeper is just a soldier; they get hungry and cold just the same as us. If we withdrew completely, troops and citizens, and just sat outside the gate for a week or two, maybe a little longer, as they sat dwindling, losing supplies on the inside, they would eventually find that sitting on a bunch of power plants for the Capitol isn't worth dying slowly over. And if they're stubborn all we would have to do is offer them a hand. Dangle a freshly baked loaf of bread in front of their faces and they'll forget why they wanted the district in the first place. No one would have had to be slaughtered and we'd be able to offer them relief in exchange for a district that didn't undergo damage."

Boggs leans forward, across the table, eyes narrowed at Peeta. "You want us to offer our precious supplies to people who were killing us just a week or two before? How would we feed everyone outside the gate for that long? What if that gave the Capitol time to send reinforcements? There are flaws in both plans, no denying, but to siege District Five would have been pointless. And what about District Ten? You read the report. Gale did that same thing. We tried starving them out and then attacking. We tried flooding them out. We poisoned their fields and water supplies. Every method of siege we know of was inflicted on Ten. Do you see any loopholes there?"

It takes a moment. But eventually Peeta looks at Boggs, his voice confident. "Did you ever try talking to them?"

That's not the right answer. Even I know that. "You can't just talk to someone who you're at open war with," I say. Faces all around the room change expression to agree with me, cringing at Peeta's suggestion, smirking at him, even Finnick nods his assent to my words. "You know that's true. If they even agreed to speak with us they'd just shoot. _After_ they took away our own weapons."

Peeta gives his head a dismissive shake. "No. They wouldn't shoot. They haven't shot at us since our first attempt, when we broke into their gates and they got desperate to push us out. Once their gates where barricaded and all the rebel supporters were thrown out of the district–_not_ killed–everything Ten has done is purely defensive. Read between the lines on the reports. They don't _want_ to fight us."

I didn't read the report, so I don't know. The pages are filled with pictures of the event and detailed reports of the skirmishes and of bodies of lost soldiers, or squad leaders, or the ditches where they put all the dead. A list of names. A pair of parents who will be grieving those kids; kids who were orphaned. Places that were torn apart by grenades. "If they don't want to fight, what do they want?" I ask, straying from the report talk. "Why won't they surrender?"

"To keep their district," says Peeta, as if it were obvious. "All they've done is claim Ten. There's been no trains since we blew up the tracks and the Capitol hasn't sent any supply hovercrafts. They're depending solely on their livestock supply and the river that runs through the district for food and fresh water. That's why we can't starve them out or poison their water source. They don't need us. Don't want us. And if we just talked to them–"

"But that will just get you killed!" I snap, shutting him up. Everyone is looking at me now. "These aren't loopholes. They're you not accepting the fact that just maybe, you might have to do something other than make peace. The reason we lost Five was because the Peacekeepers aren't afraid to kill innocent people. They're fearless and for their cause, and they know what they'll do to get it. Do _you_?"

And I don't realize I've risen to my feet until Peeta's wide eyes are staring up at me in bewilderment. A handful of emotions cross his face; surprise, uncertainty, regret, and what sticks is a mask of such confusion that all I can do is throw down my pen and rush out of the room. Neither trainer barricades my way out the door and I'm only half the hallway away before I hear a voice behind me say, "Now there's my Mockingjay."

I whirl on Haymitch. "I am no one's Mockingjay!" Before I can help myself the words are out and he just smiles at me as if he knows. As if he understands how much I hate that title. The months I spent pretending to be the Capitol's Mockingjay and hating every moment of it.

I spend the rest of the night and the next day holed up in my own room. Half the time I am wishing I had stored Prim's letter next to _my_ cot, because reading her words might have calmed me the best. I'm too stubborn to retrieve them from Peeta's room myself or to ask one of the doctors to get them for me every time they come by to hand me a meal.

The other half of the time I lay, staring at the ceiling, lost in thoughts of how I'm supposed to do this. How do I get to Snow, when I we can't even get Ten? When Peeta is willing to wait things out and all I can do to stay in place is cling to the hope that soon, _soon_, President Coin or Violet or my trainer will deem me ready to do _something, anything, everything? _All I need is one inch of leash before I can turn an inch into a foot, I feel sure of it.

When I do come out of my room the next morning I locate Violet and ask her if she can get Coin to reassign Gale to District 3. At first she refuses, and I think it has more to do with Coin than me, but she agrees after a good amount of probing. I'm just glad _I_ don't have to deal with Coin.

Throughout training I don't look or speak to anyone. I don't really listen to my trainer either. That's not entirely new. On the last supply hovercraft that came from 13 Beetee sent me a bow he'd been working on. Oddly, since I have not seen him since Gloss threw him down the side of a cliff, I feel as though I owe him for this. It's a stunning black bow. Exquisite balance, elegant design, and the curve of the limbs that somehow suggests the wings of a bird extended in flight. The bow is alive in my hands, hums along with each noise I make, responding to only my voice. There was a message with it that said it does more than go with my costume Cinna designed; he left it up to me to figure them out.

So that's what I do. I skip breakfast, I shrug away Boggs or Finnick or my trainer when they come to talk to me or boss me around. All I have is this bow, a ravaged target and arrows that Beetee designed, which are no less remarkable than the weapon. Between the two, I can shoot with accuracy over one hundred yards. The variety of arrows—razor sharp, incendiary, explosive—turn the bow into a multipurpose weapon. Each one is recognizable by a distinctive colored shaft. I have the option of voice override at any time, but have no idea why I would use it. To deactivate the bow's special properties, I need only tell it "Good night." Then it goes to sleep until the sound of my voice wakes it again.

I keep it awake all day. The whole time I methodically shoot. Often I'll move, twist, lean, arch. After noon I find the target is boring me. I walk across the field, pass through the large hedge line that signifies the end of the training area and I go hunting. No one stops me and I'm sure if they tried I might have thought about practicing my bow on their ample form.

It's so strange to be out in the woods again, listening for the beat of a bird's wings or the rustle of leaves. In some other sense it is natural, too; a lost piece of myself that burrows to the surface and puts me to ease. Every time I do spot an animal, I aim, shoot and purposefully miss it by a centimeter. I find it's actually harder to do that. In actuality the animals are bigger targets compared to the ones I make just beside their ears or tails or wings, that is only the span of inch, and if I miss it, I have to try again. As they're running away, it's hard _not_ to hit them, more strenuous for me to focus on that niggling space that I decide is the _true_ target.

At the end of the day, when an orange sunset sits behind clouds that paint the horizon silver, I return to the the district with two accidentally killed birds and a partially white rabbit. They're given over to the cooks and I send myself straight to the showers. I wash away the sweat and mud of the day, relishing in the warm water compared to the frigid weather outside. As I'm getting dressed, feeling refresh and clean, I decide maybe it's time I sought out Peeta. I'm making my way up the stairwell toward my floor, when I stall in the hallway, spotting Gale and Peeta standing outside the latter's room.

They're talking and don't notice me right away.

"What do you mean you don't know where she is?" Gale is saying.

Peeta opens his mouth to reply, but I make sure to take a purposefully loud step toward them and both their heads swing around to look at me. Gale, still suited up in his uniform from 12, wrapped in a coat that would be strong against the cold, smiles at me and strides over to give me a hug. Peeta avoids looking at us as I rest my chin on Gale's shoulder.

"I thought you'd never call," Gale says when we pull apart.

"Yeah. Me too. I think we're going to be deemed ready soon, though."

Peeta speaks up. "Our trainers told us that everyone is going to take the exam tomorrow. You would have heard, but no one could find you." He meets my gaze from across the hall. I can see he's ready to make amends for what happened two days ago. My resolve to do so has vanished, though; an irritation is brought back, remembering what he said. How could anyone be so ignorant? Is he really that ignorant or is he just playing at it? Doesn't matter. Not until he's ready to admit what he's thinking is stupid. If I was reluctant for him to go to war before I heard he'd try to talk all his enemies out of fighting, odds if I'll let him now. And maybe I'm not being fair. He _would_ kill when the moment came, but would it be a moment too late? After a Peacekeeper has already decided to kill _him_?

A battlefield isn't a place for second guesses.

Vincent needs more than a loophole.

Vincent is worth more than a loophole.

And I can almost hear Peeta reply, _Vinny needs more than a dead mother._

Even if he didn't say it, I think he would and that makes me angry again. I turn to Gale and ask him if he's had dinner since he got off the hovercraft. As I thought, he hasn't, and we head down to the kitchen to eat. We talk about hunting, how he's not had time to do it, and I've only just managed to today. I manage a real smile some of the time. Gale talks about Madge, how she's fitting in, follows orders so well it makes him wonder what made me refuse to for my entire life, and he confesses that he's recommended her to be his replacement for when he joins our squad.

Gale is assigned to a room in a warehouse a few away from ours. Since it's already late, after he finishes eating I see him off, and then I return to my room and slide into the cot, thinking about what will happen. What the future holds. This war that has lasted so long. How long? Almost eight months, now, working on the ninth. But I'm determined for there not to be a tenth. I'll get my son, kill Snow and finally be able to feel some sort of content. A piece, at least. For this rebellion to matter again, for this loss to be worth it.

I fall asleep with the image of my son in my arms.

My nightmare is the most vivid I've had in a long time. I know the reason why. I'm lacking arms. That should be wrapped around me. So there's no one to wake me up as I start off the dream, waking violently from my three month comma, caught in the middle of war; an active fight. Blood everywhere. Johanna dismembering a toddler in the thick of the battle. Madge pinned to the mud with Head Peacekeeper Brock kissing her cheek, right over the spot where he'd branded her as the Capitol's. I throw myself at his back to help, but he deflects me with one hand. Palm smacking me square in the chest, and I'm reeling on the ground for several disorienting minutes as others run about, stepping on me.

I wake cold and sweating, throwing off my vague, heavy-headed stupor. My blankets are on the floor, thanks to violent tossing. I get to my feet, walk to the door, then retreat to my bed, because where would I go? I eventually fall back asleep. Only to wake again an hour later from a nightmare, worse than the last. Vincent was in this one. Snow, too.

I give up on sleep and find some clothes. Dawn is an hour or two away, but I slip out of my room anyway. I walk passed Peeta's door, and Cinna's, and pause for a heartbeat when I pass Leon's old room. It's completely vacant; nothing remains of him. Only that note. It's still in the pocket of the hunting jacket I've left hung over the headboard in Peeta's room. It makes me realize I've left everything with Peeta.

A solider from 13 stands at the entrance of the warehouse and tells me I can't go outside. Fine, then. I pretend to walk back up the stairs, wait a few minutes and then when he's just momentarily distracted I launch myself at the doors and push myself outside. He shouts uselessly at my back. I slip into an alley between the nearest buildings. It's freezing out and I know he won't chase me in the dark. I slow my pace at the next corner.

My clothes are too thin for this weather and my boots not insulated enough. But I had felt as if I didn't get outside immediately, I'd just go ballistic. Now that I'm here I remind myself to breathe. The air helps. Stings icily across my flesh. Brings me back to life, better than my anger does.

Vincent consumes all my thoughts. All the worries I've gathered for six weeks. Missing him like a unattached limb. I know I should care, which only makes the passed six weeks feel like I haven't been missing him enough. I should miss him. I do miss him. But maybe I'm not cut out for this mom stuff. Am I doing it right? Feeling what I should? Feeling enough? Peeta would know.

Between us we'd made some silence pact not to openly disobey or show our anger toward Coin and Violet, for what they did. If they did. I still don't have proof. Yet, how could I doubt it? There is no conceivable idea in my mind that would make me believe Snow would just hand us over. And he's been silent for six weeks, too. Six weeks he's spent with my son. Doing what? Not taping anything new; or at least not of himself and my son, there are plenty of war footage and counters, and speeches he gives from his office, to reassure his people, or loyal district dwellers. No baby, though. Or so we're told. Another hard thing to believe; that Snow would just let his best weapon sit quietly aside as we are actively throwing up the new Mockingjay front.

The amount of things I'm not told. That are hidden from me. There's no wonder I don't follow orders.

Somehow my feet carry me toward the building I know Violet is stationed. Even at this hour the place is lit and full of people, who quietly do their work, speak to one another in low voices, drink coffee like it might save their life. Many people give me strange glances as I enter the front doors and wonder toward the stairs. A pair of soldiers sweep passed me, not sparing me attention.

Every time I've been here before Violet was either waiting outside to receive me or she was in the front room, talking to this person or another, making plans. I'm not sure where her office is, but I ask a solider from 13 stationed at the top of the stairs. He stares at me long and hard before jerking his head to the door at the end of the hall. "She's not there," he tells me as I walk away.

"I'll wait," I decide, opening the door and pulling it closed behind me.

Inside it's not as extravagant as one would imagine. It's a relatively small office, with a desk pushed off to one corner, stacked high with papers, and boxes. A rather large table sits in the middle of the room, taking up most of the space. It's got screens across the surface and buttons and looks like something that would come from 13. I pace around the excessive piece of furniture and find a chair, spinning on it slightly, before realizing with a start that I hear a faint voice coming from my left. There. On the wall hangs a screen, one that reminds me of the Capitol issued televisions that anyone could get on means of watching the Hunger Games.

On it, I watch a taping with the distinctive Capitol seal on the right bottom corner. It's saying something about food shortages. I turn away, uninterested. Instead, I stand and wander over to Violet's desk. On top of it is a framed picture of herself, Leon, Benny, and a man I vaguely recognize as Head Gamemaker Heavensbee. He has an arm around Leon's neck and is smiling over at his daughter; Violet is holding Benny on Leon's other side.

"It's not something worth discussing," comes a voice from beyond the door. Instantly, I know it's Violet's, and I turn and brace myself to request she end my training, now, and send me to do something worth doing.

"No, that is your problem. You are doing all these things without my clearance. You give commands that aren't going through _me_ first. I can not and will not tolerate this any longer. You are making mistakes. You are sloppy and not considering every risk." I could recognize that voice almost instantly by its sharpness, and for a moment I just stare at the door, watching the knob tremble.

"I am doing everything I–"

"You are no better than them, Mrs. Dane."

"How dare you!"

President Coin hisses for silence, and I hear a hand smack against the door. "Inside, first."

Immediately I know I shouldn't be here, listening to this. My eyes search the room for an exit; there are no windows, no closets. I grasp the edge of the big table in the middle of the room and slip underneath it the instant the door is opened, and I hear it snap closed.

There is no instant argument as the two pairs of feet shuffle into the room. Violet mumbles something I don't catch, but I assume it was to offer President Coin a seat, which she promptly refuses, her voice loud and clear to hear; everything about them is so different. I hold my breath in the silence as I watch the pair of dainty feet slip around the edge of the table, pause at the deck, not a foot from me. She leans into it and Coin taps a few things on the table above me. I wrap my hands into fists and lay closer to the floor.

"As you know, I have come here to revoke your declaration on television," President Coin finally says.

"You have no right. I don't touch your things and you don't touch mine. It's a simple concept," says Violet.

"And yet, this war is going no where." I could hear a coldness in Coin's voice that I'd never detected before. "Your father understood the need of submission. There isn't room for three presidents in Panem. Give me your resources, the loyalties of those you've gotten onto your side.. give me your aid, Mrs. Dane, and I will use them in the best way, to ensure progress. You are throwing back everything I put forward. This war should already be over."

"And yet, it isn't." There is peculiar edge to Violet's voice as she adds, "It if wasn't for me the Mockingjay would be dead."

"If your father hadn't messed up his job, she would have been a lot more useful to me."

"That is the past, leave it there. I am talking about the mansion. If my husband had not gotten her out, Plutarch would have killed her, too."

"I had my men in there, they would have–"

"Your men didn't do anything. Your men were hurt by Plutarch."

I cringe at that. It was a bad answer. Hadn't Plutarch blown up the place on her command? Leon knew about Plutarch, he.. he.. I draw in a slow breath, as I wait for Coin to attack Violet on that point; if Plutarch hurt her men, it was because Violet failed to warn her, or aid her, just as she was asking.

But the attack never comes.

"If we knew he turned into a suicide bomber, we would have handled the situation perfectly on our own," says Coin in a composed, airy manner. "Plutarch's pathetic attempt at killing President Snow isn't what I came here to talk to you about."

There is a small sigh. "You came about the refugee camps," says Violet. "I know."

Camp_s_?

"You know what happened to the hospital in District Eight. Peeta was there filming when it happened. You saw the propo at least a hundred times. What are you doing? Do you choose to be ignorant? I sent a message here ordering you to dispatch them. Be smart about this. Those camps are like throwing a container of gasoline across a field, waiting for the match to light it. And the Capitol will bring a match, Mrs. Dane. Do not think they are sentimental people." There is a pause, and Coin leans over the table, placing her hands onto the top of it with a soft sound. "You ignored my message. Now I am forced to come here. I don't like being given orders, Mrs. Dane."

"I didn't order you here," says Violet – nothing more.

In tense silence I shift slightly, angling myself so I can just glimpse a diagonal view of Violet's face. She's smiling, her perfectly white and straight teeth gleaming in the dim light of the office, her eyes are like two gold coins. I can only imagine the expression of Coin's face; narrowed eyes, straight hair line cutting down the side of her face, lips compressed.

"I will disperse those camps."

"No, you won't."

Another pause. "Was that an order, Mrs. Dane?"

"You don't know anything, do you?"

The next silence is one of shock. Even I'm not sure I've just heard Violet say that, let alone to President Coin. "I know enough," Coin begins, her voice rising steadily in the sharp way only she can achieve, when Violet makes a sound that is half squeak and half laugh.

"I beg to differ, Alma." Now it is Violet who steps up to the table and I instantly recoil from her, biting into my cheek when I hear her hands hit the table, harder than Coin's had. "President Snow is playing a game with us. Leon told me he doesn't think it was really Plutarch who rigged the mansion.." _but I heard him, he said that Plutarch was going to take action. _I remember the soft, feathery light hand that pushed a water bottle to my lips, in my poisoned daze. I heard her tell Plutarch he was brave.

"I am not here to talk about the rescue mission," says Coin. "It is the past. Leave it there. All that does not matter now. We have the Mockingjay. Mission accomplished. You have new orders, and I am telling you to get rid of these refugee camps. I will not be held accountable for these blinding weak spots. I have already withdrew all my soldiers from them, they are all in your hands. This is blood that will go on your hands."

Violet makes a tutting sound. "You really don't see," she says. "I was prepared to have their bloods in my hand since the moment I issued the order to build camps."

"You mean, since you took Gale from my ranks and used him for yourself. He was wasted making those camps."

"You have such problems with sharing, Alma. What was it? A big sister that used to bully you?" Violet is taunting her; she never seemed the type, then again, she seems to be showing more sides than I ever thought she had. "I needed Gale there, for the propos. He was good advertisement. Who would trust a propo about a safe haven midst this war? They would think it was a trap. But slap the Mockingjay's cousin onto the screen and there you have it; a good old-fashioned decoy."

_Decoy? _"Decoy?" asks Coin. For once, our thoughts are in the same place.

"I have a brother among the Peacekeepers. He's high up, and though he is scolded for being related to me, he is favored by President Snow. He always was. And he's been feeding lies into Snow's ears from the very moment he weaseled his way to the top."

"How did he manage that?" asks Coin, deterred for a moment, cautious about this claim. "How do you know Snow is not just keeping his enemy close to him?"

"Because my brother has proved himself of worth."

"With what?"

"My father's plans."

"_He_ ratted out the Quarter Quell plans?" Coin hisses in disbelief. "You knew and you have neglected–"

"I ordered him to do it."

There is ringing silence. I frantically try to work through what Violet is saying. _The refugee camps as decoys. Her brother close to Snow; the man she ordered to snitch out her own father. The fact that both of them think Plutarch was working on his own; or it was not him at all, who rigged the mansion (though I know it had to have been.. don't I?)_

I'm struck with such a sense of stupidity that I have to resist the urge to snarl at myself. I remember the day of the rescue mission better than the arena. I recall that woman's voice, soft and regal as she spoke into the phone... and acted as though the person on the other line were responding. How can a man without a tongue speak?

"What do you think you're up to?" says Coin. "What is this?"

"Politics," says Violet. "You're just not very good at them. Snow is. I am. You don't even know the rules of the game. One does what they can, no matter what. One pushes the limits. They _lie_. And most importantly, one cleans up their messes."

For a moment, I think I hear something; a soft clink, or click. Then I realize there is something wrong with President Coin, as her legs knock softly against the chair beside her. I watch her knees buckle beneath her; her whole form is trembling with what appears to be extraordinary effort.

"What...have.. you.."

"You're a mess, Alma," I hear Violet say, and then her foot steps, as she moves around to Coin's side of the table. Coin is sinking, I realize, her legs failing her. She is forcing herself to cling to the table, fingers like claws unsheathing against the edge. Violet reaches her. I can only see their legs, as Violet murmurs, "I'm cleaning you up," and President Coin's body completely fails her.

She is on her knees, arms still raised above her head as her hands spaz with her muscles, slipping and gripping over and over again. Her head it turned, tipped upward, staring into the face of her attacker. I shrink against the floor, seeing her; a needle sticks out from her neck.

Coin shows no pain. She does not weep or beg or even grow enraged to the point of roaring threats or shouting for revenge. Her eyes stare coldly upward. That is until the muscle spasms travel from her hands to her face and body; her lips twitch and her eyes begin to flicker, and her jowls tremble, until she is a withering mess. Still, somehow she has enough in her to reach for her neck with shaking hands and rip out the needle.

It clatters to the floor, rolls under the table and stops only when it touches my arm. I clench my jaw, refuse to move or make noise; that would only draw Coin's eyes to me. The last thing I needed was this. I could attack Violet, if she came at me, but she could just shout for guards. Say to them I killed Coin and then afterward, I came at her. Who would they believe? Me? Or her?

Coin's body continues to spaz until I see a hand reach down and grasp her under her chin. "There isn't room for three presidents in Panem," Violet whispers and when she drops Coin's face, the woman collapses, nerveless; fluttering eyes directed underneath the table.

She sees me, hugging the tiled floor, holding my breath, staring with guarded, harsh grey eyes.

There is no alarm raised, no show of her sighting. All she does is stare at me, until her eyes flicker for a final time and her chest stops the short, sporadic rise of her breathing, and she falls still; dead.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

A/N: I'm sorry. So sorry. It's been so long. This is all I have. I can't finish the chapter like I planned, because I simply just don't have the time. This is better than nothing, though, right? Honestly, I'm loathing this story now. But I'll finish it, for all you faithful readers. For now this is all I have.

* * *

Chapter Sixteen

I lay completely still,waiting. What happens now? Why has Violet done this? How will she explain this to all the soldiers from 13? How will she explain this to the nation? More importantly, how had I not seen this coming? I should have known the moment Leon fled.

_Now there are only two presidents in Panem, and both of them are oppressing, faithless Capitolites._

As I listen to Violet's footsteps, moving toward the door, I wonder if this rebellion is still a rebellion.

I wonder if we are still fighting for freedom. If we're still getting rid of the Hunger Games.

I feel undoubtedly sure that this was the woman who took my son and handed him to President Snow without hesitation. Better yet, it was probably her brother who passed Vincent along. I seethe silently.

Violet calls out the door to someone. I see a pair of hustling feet arrive, and behind them I take note to the solider from District 13 who had pointed me to this room. He is slumped against the wall at the top of the stairwell, unmoving, unbreatheing.

"Any casualties?" asks Violet.

"None, ma'am. President Coin brought ten soldiers with her for protection. All are dead, no blood spilled, as ordered. The crew of the hovercraft that brought her here is also taken care of."

"How many?"

"Six. In total her crew makes sixteen bodies. Coin makes seventeen. This count is dis-including all the soldiers that saw her arrive, of which have been silenced. As we speak they are being collected and will be buried somewhere no one would ever think to look."

"And the hovercraft?"

"On route to the nearest active war zone between here and Thirteen. It will be burned to the point of no hope. There won't be any bodies to find. Coin will be presumed dead, killed at the hands of the Capitol."

"Good." I listen for the strum of satisfaction in Violet's tone, but there is nothing but, cool, calm, and demure quality. "Good work."

There is a third pair of feet heading toward the door. "Here for the body."

Violet steps aside to give him entrance to her office. I shrink further into the floor as the man leans over and hefts President Coin's corpse from the tiles, her arms twisted awkwardly around his form and her nerveless legs dangling.

"Wait," says one of the men. "Where's the syringe?"

I suck in my breath. "It rolled under the table. Bury it with her," says Violet dismissively.

Since the man holding Coin has his hands full, it's a different man who moves to obey her order. My eyes shoot around frantically for coverage; I spot the desk, and transit from laying on my stomach to crouching on my haunches, sliding between the chairs, closest to the desk. They can't see my hands that grip the edge of the table, hefting me forward, and I slip across the small distance between war table to office desk in seconds, huddling against the metal interior, pulling my knees to my chest, not daring to breathe, waiting to see if they'd glimpsed me make my move.

"Got it," I hear the man say and Violet escorts them both out.

The door is closed behind the men, leaving me alone with Violet. I listen to her footsteps pace for several moments, nearing me. She picks up something off the desk and I hear the hum of a phone. Just before she speaks, there is a knock on her door.

Violet sighs heavily. "What is it now?" she asks, crossing the room, creaking the door open.

"I'm sorry." I know that voice, and I straighten, hands curling into fists.

The man is timid – he is _frightened_.

"What is it Solider Pander?"

"I..ma'am, I came to report.. the Mockingjay got passed me."

"Passed?"

"Out of the warehouse.. where I was posted. She's no where to be found."

"Have you checked with Mr. Mellark?"

"No. She's not there."

"And Mr. Hawthorne's bed?"

"No. I looked. Everywhere."

"How exactly did she get passed you? I assigned you a place at that warehouse to make sure this didn't happen." I could imagine her pinching the bridge of her nose as she spoke. "Has anyone reported to seeing her?"

"Well.."

"Speak up, dear."

"A handful say they saw her in this building."

My hiding is over. They'll sweep the building and they'll find me in an instant and Violet will guess what I've seen. "Very well," says Violet, and I wait, not daring to trust it, because it sounds as though she's leaving. "We'll check the roof. She likes heights, I was told. We're the tallest building in the district."

"Yes, ma'am."

The door is closed and I wait, holding my breath, forcing my heart to slow, so I can hear the ringing silence that is left behind. Somehow, even though I'd only been crouched in hiding for no more than a half an hour, my muscles complain when I pull myself to my feet. I roll my shoulders as I hobble toward the door, rubbing away the sore throb in my knees. I pause, listening intently beyond the room. I only have so long before they reach the roof to find I'm not there, which will then finally, most likely, trigger the panic in Violet.

After two minutes of no footsteps or voices, I reach for the door knob, and I peer out into the hall. Once I'm satisfied, I slip out, close the door carefully behind my back and take off down the hallway at the right. There has to be a back door, or a side door, somewhere. The front door will be flooded with people, and I'm not sure I'll be able to hide the paleness of my face or the anger, or the confusion. Coin hadn't been my friend, but she wasn't my enemy; at the very least, I knew she would help the districts. Violet, on the other hand, I have no idea what she wants, let alone how she aspires to accomplish it, or what she would do to achieve these goals.

I recall the refugee camps; "_I was prepared to have their blood on my hands from the beginning."_

What does that mean?

I don't know. _Can't_ know.

I'm not even sure where I'm fleeing to.

Or if I'll ever be able to find my way out of this mess. What can I do? Who do I tell? Haymitch? Can I trust him again, or is he with Violet now? I'm not sure. Boggs? He was Coin's man through and through.. would he take my word of Coin's death over Violet's claim? Both are unsteady terrain to travel, and the last thing I need is that uncertainty. I can't have someone betray me now. And I know exactly who I need, the one person who would take my words without doubt or need of evidence, and I find myself fleeing toward him of all people.

I'm nearing a turn when the sound of footsteps echos around the corner. I look around frantically for a point of hiding. The hall is clear of everything; one door, that is locked, and an open window. I peer out the glass, the opening just wide enough for me to slip through, and the drop is only from the second floor.

I weigh the options for two seconds, before I don't have anymore time and I pull myself through the window. I grip the outside ledge and cling, dropping, for what couldn't be more than five seconds, but knocks me breathless in the strain. Dangling, my legs knock against the outside wall a few times, before I force myself my body still, tense, and screaming. ..._five, six, seven, _I count, _eight, nine, ten. _Beneath me is a row of hedges, and beyond that is the forest; I'm on the back side of the building. The people in the hallway are gone after the fifteenth second. I grapple to pull myself back inside. Only my arms aren't what I want them to be, and for a split second, I consider dropping..

Then the second passes and I claw my way back into the building, barely catching myself on the floor, before I'm walking again. I try the doors as I go, jostling the doorknobs but most of the rooms are locked. Eventually, I come across a stairwell. It leads to a back door, alright, with two soldiers standing beyond the threshold, in the cool night air, otherwise occupied, wrapped around one another.

I gauge how much attention they have left to spare it on a person who blitzes by. The answer is very little, apparently, because there is no up cry, as I race from the back of the building, along the buildings to the left, with the intent of reaching the district gate, then the warehouse.

The sky is gray and brightening and dawn is spilling across the horizon. It's dim and cloudy though, and there is no threat of anyone seeing me, not until I reach the warehouse and there are two men from District 3 milling about the entrance.

I avert my feet to take me to the side of the warehouse, where I know there to be a side door. It leads me through the kitchens, and then the makeshift cafeteria where I spot Johanna eating. She is glowering at her gruel and I pause to catch my breath. To gather my pieces and thoughts and_ what just happened._

I calm myself easily; because it's not hard to wrap my head around this new reality. I have no idea what's awaiting this war, but I know that I have no loyalty to Violet and I have no loyalty to Snow.. and my only loyalty is to my family, and if anything, I know I will bring the Capitol down, as a Mockingjay or a mother, or Katniss Everdeen – that doesn't matter anymore.

By the time I'm walking down the next hall, hand vaguely gliding against the wall to guide me, I hear the voices of soldiers coming from both upstairs and the front. _Where do I go?_ Should I pretend to have been eating breakfast? But that won't work, because all they have to do is ask the cooks, or Johanna, or her guards and none of them would vouch for me.

Next to the cafeteria, to the right, are the rooms designated for the doctors that had taken care of us victors and war prisoners on our return. I don't trust them enough to rely on an alibi from them either. To the left, is the showers. That seems conceivable. I make my way toward the rooms and push open the girl's – only to rebuke when I catch a glimpse of a female solider of District 3, peering around the turn of one of the stalls. I retreat to the hall. Behind me I hear voices in the kitchens, and ahead of me is the staircase, where footsteps ring down from.

I panic and push my way into the boy's showers without care. I turn the instant I'm inside, locking the door, and sag into it momentarily, an ear pressed against the wood. Beyond it, there is a voice calling. Behind me I hear the hiss of a shower.

"Finnick?" comes a muffled voice. "Did you forget something?"

_No, _I think. "Shut up."

"Katniss.." I hear the stall door creaking. Peeta's voice quiets, "Why?"

An answer comes in time to a loud banging on the door. "Open up!"

I turn on my heels and take in Peeta, emerging from the shower, dripping, hair slathered over his forehead, and a towel haphazardly wrapped around his hips. I reach for the hem of my shirt and pull it off in one fluid movement. I press a finger to my lips when Peeta raises an eyebrow and his eyes flick to the door in concern. The banging continues, the door knob fiddling.

I reach Peeta just as I kick my pants off my ankles and I place my hands flat on his chest, pushing him back into the shower stall. My lips attach themselves to his neck and I mumble in his ear, voice unsteady, but urgent, "I was here the _whole_ time," and Peeta nods jerkily, his hands slipping around me and undoing the clasp of my bra.

The towel around his waist falls away the same moment the soldiers manage to unlock and open the shower-room door. I cling to Peeta, and his lips move from my shoulder to my cheek and his hands press heavily into my lower back. Above us the shower soaks my hair and drips from his face to mine, and the sound of the soldiers voice cuts through the steaming air; "Report."

Peeta lifts his head. The solider is beyond the stall, but there is nothing that will stop him from entering if we don't speak. "Soldier Mellark, sir," Peeta says, voice clear. "Is something.."

"_Just_ Solider Mellark?"

Peeta's eyes find mine; _do I tell him?_

"Solider Everdeen, reporting," I say, breaking eye contact, pressing myself close to Peeta, cheek to collarbone, hands sliding wetly up the sides of his torso, fingers wrapping around his biceps.

There is a pause, then a sigh. "As you were." I close my eyes, uncoiling my taunt muscles, when the man leaves, the door clamoring shut behind him.

After a few moments, Peeta's lip find my hair and glide to my ear. His hands caress lower. "Are you going to tell me what you did?" he whispers lowly.

"You promise to believe me?"

"You could tell me anything."

I knew that; but it's nice to hear. To be trusted. "Coin's dead."

"How?"

"Violet killed her."

His fingertips trail lightly up my spine and back down, thoughtfully. "What do we do?"

"What do you think we do?"

"Well we're already back to plotting in showers," he says, faintly amused.

I smile into his skin, then press my lips there for a moment, before pulling back to look at his face. Droplets of stray water catch my face and flick onto my eyelashes. "We have to leave."

"The test is today. We'll both pass."

"They'll assign us a squad. The one for propos, like Madge told me."

Peeta dips his chin in agreement. "Where will they send us?"

"Somewhere with the best footage."

That doesn't please either of us.

"District Ten," he suggests, softly.

"Why? That has no fighting."

"Exactly. What better to motivate a fight or a victory, than the Mockingjay?"

"And there's no one there to shoot me," I realize. But perhaps, Violet doesn't have need of me, and she will send me to the thick of the battle, in hopes I'll die. However, why would she trouble herself for a rescue only to kill me? Suddenly, District 10 seems certain. _How can I get to the Capitol and Vincent from there? How can I save the people in those ominous refugee camps without knowing where they are and what awaits them?_

I offer Peeta my mouth and he takes it. I deepen the kiss, drawing his tongue to mine, warm and sweet and slippery. As slippery as his skin against mine. My hands are slick when they climb passed his shoulders and fist in his curls. He draws away for breath, kisses sloppily moving down my jaw. "We might not have another chance to do this," he says, voice husky.

There are more important things to think about and to do and to plan for, but I can't help and agree. The warmth pooling my lower abdomen begs the same, and even my bleak thoughts and memories don't seem to be able to dampen the want. One of my legs slips around his, pulling him awkwardly closer; groins bumping together and causing him to groan aloud, and me internally.

"I should still be mad," I mumble, voice catching when his lips curve down my neck, pausing at my ramming pulse; I feel thrilled, and relieved beyond knowing for not being caught at spying, and I'm certain that once we leave District 3 alone time will never come, and if we don't win and return with our son, one of us may as well be a corpse.

"You're not mad," he decides. He walks us back until we are standing against the wall of the shower stall, my back pressed against the white tiles, and a violet chill racks through me at the icy bite. But his hands are warm, as they slip around my waist and up passed my shoulderblades, to feel out the twists of the braid at the base of my skull, and undoing them, kissing my face as hot rain, in one place then the next. "You can never stay mad at me."

"I'm mad," I retort, biting his lower lip enough to leave an impression. The fingers in his hair twist a little, to draw some pain, and he smothers my mouth with his, pinching the back of my neck, in tease. "What you said upset me."

"You're worried I'll get myself killed, I know. You always think that."

"Cause it's _true_."

Peeta draws himself to his full height, chest heavy against my breasts, our foreheads bumping together. His eyes are hot in mine. "Have I died? Have I let you die, yet?"

I press my lips into a line.

"No," he answers, sweeter, less direct. His kiss on my temple is tender. "Not yet."

I close my eyes, hands falling from his hair to the back of his neck, a stray finger twirling a wet strand of hair there. "I'm not even sure what to do anymore, you realize. There are no plans. No leader to support.. or president.. or.." I struggle to find a point; it comes out as a question. "Who is going to take over Panem once this war is over?"

Peeta is thoughtful, though his kisses distract me plenty, running on my neck, sucking, nipping. His breath comes in guttering exhales, his voice certain. "Let's focus on the war. Specifically, winning, the war."

"But how?"

"With rebels."

"And who are those?"

"You. Me. Finnick and Annie. Gale. Madge. Cinna. Jo. Those in the refugee camps."

"Half of who you listed can't even fight."

"You can. I will–"

I take his face with both hands and pull him away from me, forcing his eyes to meet mine. "We're just two people, Peeta. What can we do?"

Peeta smiles. "We were just two people in that arena." He gestures around us with his chin, his eyes bright. "And look what we did. What _you_ did."

_And are you still certain what we did is a good thing? After all the death we've seen and read of and heard about? After my imprisonment and the Quarter Quell and the baby? You're proud of what this is? _

"The people of Panem, love _you_. Not Violet. Not Snow. You. When they go on screen, expecting loyalty, they won't get it. Maybe they could elicit fear and force, but that will never be the same devotion they have for you, Katniss. Even the people of the Capitol adored you better than Snow."

I'm still uncertain. "I don't want to be president. When this war is over, and everything is in ruin and there is no food and it's the dead of winter.. they're going turn to me, and I won't have anything to give them. I won't–"

"Then find someone who can."

"_Who_?"

"Someone you trust. Someone who won't make the same mistakes." As though he can't wait any longer Peeta moves his lips back to my shoulder and one of his hands that have been toying with my unbound hair, slips to the front and cups a breast.

I try to concentrate on my thoughts, while my body rises to his every movement.

"Katniss," Peeta murmurs, amusedly. "You don't have to choose now."

His lips find mine, but I draw back to speak. "When?"

"Breakfast? In five minutes? Not now?"

"Did you miss me that much?"

His answer is a sort of groan. I feel my stomach turn over when his hand drifts from my chest to my stomach, lightly tracing the scar. His lips against mine are sighing, and I close my eyes, feel an urge to shudder and squirm and smother him. "That tickles," I object, as he continues to do it.

He feels me shudder with every breath, though. The finger purposefully drags downward, just barely broaching my center. I arc into him like a bow. It slithers deeper. He is smiling. "Tell me to stop." It occurs to me he uses this often, and I find myself irked by it; for no other reason than holding a grudge.

Against my hip bone his flesh burns in mine. The other hand in my hair goes to a breast, thumb rubbing in delicious circles, sensitive skin going raw. I'm staring at the wall opposite us and his lips follow a well known path under my ear. I close my eyes, and part my lips, "Stop."

Peeta draws back and looks up at me. His hands fall away. "What is it?"

I look at him, over him, feel a _pang_ in my center. A hand lifts and traces a defined muscle in his chest, following it down to his stomach. He shudders underneath my touch. "Just checking."

"For what?"

"I always make you do it."

"What?"

I sigh at all his questions. "I always just go along for the ride. You drive."

"Does that upset you?"

"No." A smile climbs onto my face, not wholly welcome. "The opposite."

"Would you like me to just sit back then?"

The smile widens at the image in my head; Peeta, laying there, doing nothing. "I want you to–"

Now Peeta is smiling, and I look down, refusing to feel the heat gathering at my shoulders and neck. "You want me to, what?" He moves closer, pulling my body into his, fitting me to him. "You can tell me."

I feel a bit selfish, but him against me, peaks the wetness, the need.. "I want what you did last time."

He laughs, lightly, and kisses me strongly, before slipping downward, slowly, hands gliding passed my spine. "I can do that," he says, "whenever you like."

_Whenever, _I think, groggily, dizzily, the steam of the shower and his touch faltering my thoughts. His mouth drifts passed my center, though, and his hands find my leg, drawing it out from under me, and my back falls into the shower wall for balance. My hands curl into his hair. Even to me my breathing sounds ridiculously loud.

Peeta wets his lips, lowers his face to the side and kisses the curve of my calf, while his hand cups the back of my right knee. My muscles loosen under his touch. He follows the path of his hands with his lips. The wet strands of blonde hair brush the pale, soft skin and I try to control the urge to buck. Light as butterfly wings his kisses travel up my leg, tracing the blue line of a vein on the inside of my thigh. It is a vulnerable, sensitive place and I grit my teeth to keep from wiggling.

"Faster," I manage at last, "I want–"

Peeta presses his mouth to the racing pulse-point of that vein. I wonder if he can feel the galloping of my heart from that. If he knows his breath spreads over the skin slowly, as a tease, just barely felt but a ghost of promise. My sharp intake of breath is enough to hurt my lungs, and he doesn't object when my hands twist fast in his hair and I draw him upwards to my center. He doesn't object to anything I want.

One hand is against the back of my knee, another resting just at the converge of thigh and backside, fingers stroking wet skin, and my own fingers are grasping, knuckles white, against the wall. I twist into the tiles, breaking any sound that tries to cross my lips with teeth buried in my cheek. I work against his mouth, hips surging, and he is sucking maddeningly, and flicking his tongue, and the want _builds_. It burns and is a glass teetering full of liquid, just about the spill over the edge, and his grips tighten, and my hips swivel, once, twice–

"Fuck, _Peeta_," the sound not my voice, rushed and breathless. A blinding blossom of pleasure spreads through my center, up my abdomen, and is a curling heat inside of me, _white_ and fast and simply good.

I sag when the climax passes and my eyes uncloud and my cheeks are flaming crimson. Peeta is kissing his way up my stomach, hands caressing after. His voice is soft. "I've never heard you swear before."

"You've never done that to me before," I retort, finding my legs weak, and I slide down, to my knees, and meet him on the ground, hands pulling him down by the shoulders so we are level. "Not like _that_."

Peeta's smile is triumphant. It tastes bitter and salty and I don't mine. Somehow with his hair dripping over his face, shaggy and the curls looser than usually, I find him more attractive. "We have to hurry, now," I say, remembering that it's probably long passed dawn. My hand finds him, stroking, doing all that I can to make him groan. He buries his face at my collarbone, I close my eyes, press a cheek into his hair and arc when his tongue trails to my chest. We're unfolded my way before I know what is going on, with Peeta on top of me, my legs wrapped around him, heels digging into his back.

"Katniss..." he breaths as his lips pass from shoulder to jaw, sucking the skin beneath my ear. "Katniss.." I rise and fall to each thrust and my breath catches. Peeta takes the air with his mouth on mine. The kisses grow incoherent, sloppy, off-kilter. His voice doesn't; "Katniss, Katniss, Kat–"

"_Peeta,_" I counter, when his hips give one last jerk and I shudder and shatter and come apart.

He rolls us almost immediately, collapsing against the floor of the shower and my head fitting over his chest, listening to the race of his heart. I close my eyes. I try to capture this moment. It may as well be the last time; _and I don't want it to be. _"Do you remember our promise?"

"Yes." He pushes a fringe of dripping hair from my face to meet my eyes. "Is a reminder needed?"

"No," I whisper. "Just checking."

"Anything else you want to check before we're out there?"

Nothing comes to mind. All I can think is that we've managed this one moment, and though there is no way for me to know what is coming next, what we will do next, what measures we will go to, I know that in the end our promise stands. So instead of checking, I pull myself up and wash myself in the shower, and Peeta joins me soon after – he insists on washing my hair, and I fidget the whole time, a hand twitching to do it itself, but in the end he is happy. By the time we are stepping out, drying and dressing, I tell him all of what I heard from Coin and Violet, before the murder. He is concerned about the refugee camps and suggests I tell Madge. We part outside the shower-room, and I head upstairs, while he goes to the cafeteria.

In my room there is no phone, but in Leon's there is one. I call the number I know to be for District 12 and I get someone I don't know, and it takes well over ten minutes for Madge to come to the receiver. "Katniss? What is it? Isn't it kind of early?"

"A little," I admit. I have to chose my words carefully, knowing this phone might be rigged or bugged. "I had something I wanted to talk to you about."

"Yes?"

"Strawberries."

Madge gives a confused hum. "Strawberries, Katniss?"

"Yes. You know how Gale and I used to sell those to you? We would pick them in the woods. Sometimes.. we would put up protective netting around a strawberry patch we didn't want.. animals getting into and harming the supply. But sometimes.. we didn't. The strawberry bushes were left unprotected."

"I don't understand."

"Madge," I say, with meaning. "If you want strawberries, you need to protect them yourself now."

_Come on, _I think. _They won't understand this, I hope, but you can. _"Animals will think it's easy prey," she says.. uncertainly. "Is that what you mean?"

"It _is_ easy prey. District Twelve has a lot of strawberry bushes and they aren't well shielded."

"Right," says Madge. "Protect my strawberries. Is that it? Or do you have more alcohol you want to drink with Haymitch?" The last part was tacked on almost as a second thought.

"I don't know. I'll call you later and see if I have more to add. Keep in touch."

"Yes." And she hangs up.

I braid my hair as I walk back downstairs, heading toward the cafeteria. On my way there I run into Finnick. "Have a nice shower?" he asks, grinning. There is the briefest wink.

I clench a hand and feel heat in my face. "What makes you say that?"

"Just half the guards."

"Right." My jaw is clenched when we enter the cafeteria together, but it relaxes slowly, when we make our way to the table Peeta is sitting at, conversing with Johanna, whose breakfast is on the floor – someone is stooped over to clean it.

Finnick watches me watch them as we stand at the counter to receive our breakfast trays. "It seems like she's getting worse, you know," he murmurs, sadly. "Yesterday, I could hear her crying through the wall."

"She'll get better," I say, not knowing it, turning toward him and leaning into the counter. Someone has to believe. "Johanna's the strongest."

"She used to be." His face is uncertain.

"She still is. I don't think any of us could have survived what she did." _I wouldn't have. I wouldn't want to._ "You'll see. When we pass this test today, we'll go out to the districts and when we get back, she'll be better."

There is a _crack_ of skin on skin, proving me utterly wrong.

We both turn to see Gale has joined Peeta and Johann at the table, and the guards are wrestling Johanna into submission, as she tosses herself around and snarls and even grabs onto Peeta's wrist for leverage. He is cringing, eyes flickering between Gale with a red hand print on his cheek and the insane Johanna, and he tells the guards something that make them release her – she hurls herself at Gale, but Peeta is standing, an arm around her waist pulling her back and he is dragging her out of the room, followed by the guards.

Gale sits. We join him, placing our trays down cautiously. "What happened?"

Gale's expression seems a bit miffed and angry. "I said 'good morning'."

Finnick pushes his gruel at Gale, looking disgusted by the prospect of eating. "I'll go to her." He rises and passes Peeta in the doorway. They exchange some words, before Peeta slips into the seat next to me.

"She took you for someone else," says Peeta to Gale.

"That so?"

"Something about the tribute from District Twelve in her year being from the Seam."

Makes sense. I don't want to linger on that though. I'm relieved she is gone, because with her guards so close it would have been hard to talk to Gale about what I need him to do. For a small time, I eat the sticky, unflavored gruel, mulling over my words, while Peeta pushes his around and Gale doesn't even touch the tray. I recall the last time we spoke, about how I'd asked him to be at my side.. how I told him I needed him.. and I still do, because, somehow, when I imagine killing Snow, Gale is there, somewhere, and Peeta.. well he's somewhere else, with the baby, away.. and I'm sure that doesn't work..

And yet, still, the death of Coin seems to have thrown me straight onto Peeta's side of the scale. Peeta and I can't help the mess that is left behind with the refugee camps, nor can we move through the ranks with any sense of familiarity. Someone has to help Madge... and Gale's the only one I trust to do it.

As the silence continues between the three of us, long and drawn out, I feel Peeta's hand ghosts over my knee. I bite into my cheek, raise my head, and meet Gale's stare. "I need you to go back," I tell him.

"Back? To where?" He is measuring my expression; his eyes don't flicker to Peeta in suspicion, and for that I'm more than grateful. "To District Twelve?"

"To the refugee camps. You worked with them didn't you? All of them?"

"I helped, yes." There is a bitter edge to his voice. "Though most of my work was on camera."

_That's what I'm afraid of. _"I need you to go back.. there's.. these camps.."

"Are an awful idea, I know." Gale leans over the table slightly, voice lowering. "I told them over and over again, but they just handed me a script and told me to do as I was ordered. I couldn't find anyone to listen to me. Beetee tried to help, but he was pushed aside, too. We just assumed they had a protection we didn't know about and they didn't want to share.."

"They don't. They want them unprotected.." I trail off. Gale's eyes are darkening. "You need to go back and help spread them again. As many as you can, anywhere, thin and wide."

"I can try. But how are we going to convince Coin to kick me off the squad?"

Peeta speaks up, just as I'm about to tell him Coin is no longer a player in these games. "We have to convince them there is no possible way that we can work together or get along."

"What? You want to fight?" asks Gale.

Peeta shrugs.

I find my hand curling around his on my leg. I look between the two. "A fight?"

"It'll convince them," Peeta admits. "We can do it now, after we're in the field, gathered for the test. There will be plenty of witnesses and we'll be stopped before we're expected to do too much damage."

I don't like the idea. The image of either one of them going at each other with a fist in the intent of hitting the other's jaw or face, makes me cringe. Gale and Peeta don't seem to care much about that, this isn't a real fight to them, not when it's planned – but in my head it looks real, and it'll probably look fairly real when it happens.

"They'll kick me off the squad before they even touch Peeta," says Gale, considering the angles. "It would ruin the star-crossed lover image they worked so hard to preserve if he was cut..." his voice fades out. I watch him carefully; and if there is anything that has no changed, it's how well we can read each other.

Somehow the words come out right. "Do you know what happened the day of the rescue mission?"

Gale blinks at me. "Yeah, don't you?"

Peeta gives me an incredulous glance, but I don't move my eyes from Gale. "Tell us."

"Coin discussed it in the last war council meeting. Just before I was sent here last night, I was in District Thirteen, visiting my mother and attending the meeting. I hadn't been told anything the last time we met. But recently it's been found out that those notes, the ones written to you about the baby and Mr. March's body, they aren't Snow's handwriting. Both experts and Beetee agree it was most likely a female who wrote them." _Violet or Coin? _I wonder to myself, allowing my eyes to find Peeta's, but Gale continues to add, "It's also been discovered that the hovercraft that deposited all of you, to the meeting place fifty miles south of District Three, wasn't actually from the Capitol, nor is it from District Thirteen. District Three doesn't own any hovercrafts, aside the ones Thirteen loans them. The pictures taken of the hovercraft at the meeting were examined and the painted Capitol seal on it was just that – recently painted on, sloppy."

"Who has the means of owning a hovercraft besides the Capitol and District Thirteen?" I demand. "Who would have us? _All_ of us?" _Me, knocked out by that stranger Peacekeeper, Peeta and Finnick, in the Capitol hospital, Madge and Cinna and Leon, running in the streets, the bodies of those who died... _"Is it possible that the hovercraft _was_ the Capitols? But stolen?"

Gale mulls it over, nodding thoughtfully. "It was thought about. It's possible the hovercraft could have been engineered specifically to leave out the in-branded seal, while still being manufactured in and by the Capitol. Someone could have had it made like that specifically. Even Snow. I don't see why he would though."

"And there's been.. no proof," murmurs Peeta. We turn to him. "Of Snow having the baby. There are no propos or anything. Wouldn't he hold this over our head? Wouldn't he show the baby every chance he got?"

I've already considered that. "Maybe he's saving it for a more critical time.." But Gale is staring at his hands. Suspicion flickers up inside me. "There has been, hasn't there?"

"I didn't know until yesterday, I swear. I would have told you. I was going to, the moment I got the chance, but last night didn't seem.. right. With the soldiers everywhere and–"

"I don't care," I snap. "Just tell me now, what you know. _All of it._"

"The baby is fine. He looked healthy" – a sound escapes Peeta, that I'm sure I would have made if my gut didn't twist itself in envy of Gale, getting to see Vincent's face long before me – "and Snow didn't do anything to him, but hold him, briefly." My hand in Peeta's is a vise, cutting off the blood flow to his fingers. "The whole propo was about the rescue mission, how it was a shame that you were stolen from them, how they managed to save your baby, how the mansion will only be a reminder of how destructive and savage the rebels are, attacking his home. It was just more lies."

"And the baby?" prompts Peeta, when my voice doesn't want to work.

Gale stares at Peeta. "Looked like a baby."

Now it's Peeta's hand contorting around mine. "Throw me a bone, Gale. Just this once."

"You couldn't see it much, it was all wrapped up and Snow handed him to his granddaughter almost immediately after he picked him up." Gale gives a half shrug of his shoulder. "It had blonde hair."

Pricks of emotion tug at me from all directions, of every kind, and I suppress them all in one breath, my stomach queasy and nervous and nauseous. I press my lips into a hard line, and though I grapple for something to respond with – anything, really, about anything, I don't. I merely feel Peeta's leg lean against my left, nudging, and his hand pulls mine into his lap, to be crushed against his stomach.

"His granddaughter?" Peeta manages.

I'm reminded in one bleak wave, all my hatred. "What did she look like?" I ask. I can't very well kill all of Snow's family if I don't recognize them. "Was his daughter there?"

Gale doesn't seem to understand why we would direct our questions at her. It probably isn't the direction most would dive toward, but hearing about Vincent is almost unbearable in a sense, and not enough. I cut him off when he tries to answer the first questions, "Show us this propo."

"I can't."

"Who can?"

"Coin?"

Peeta swears under his breath. Something he never does.

"That's a problem," I say when Gale narrows his eyes uneasily at Peeta.

"Why?"

"Coin.." I falter. "Coin never showed up in the district last night, like she was supposed to." I can't say why I lied. Maybe I thought someone was listening or that Gale wouldn't be able to reel himself in if he knew. I don't know how deep his loyalty toward Coin stood. How much he would react to the news. What rash decision it might lead to. It's simply better for him to focus on the refugee camps. As far as he should know, the Capitol is the only enemy; he can't do anything about Violet, no more than I can for this time – I need her, to get to Snow, and once I have Vincent, and Snow is gone, I'll turn back around and take care of her. By that time, I'll have told Gale, hopefully.

A soldier arrives to the cafeteria moments after my statement, telling us we'll be late if we don't leave that instant. Gale follows Peeta and I out of the warehouse, and I tense up when Peeta draws me against his side, arm around my waist. I'm overly aware of Gale behind us, and the fight, and we pass Finnick on his way to training as well, talking with Boggs.

By the time we're beyond the district gate, stepping off the graveled path and into the muddied grass, the morning air is misted and cold. Everyone's breath is a puff of white. And the sun is hidden behind a veil of silver, illuminated a sickly yellow, that reminds me of Buttercup.

I almost don't feel it when Peeta's ripped from my side. I wouldn't have if it weren't for the splashing footsteps and Peeta's arm around my waist, its weight and warmth disappearing in a jolt. I whirl, a not so fake cry of dismay crossing my lips, at the sight of Gale fisting the hood of Peeta's coat, and bringing the other down on his face.

He misses, when Peeta's knee comes up at an awkward angle and catches Gale in the gut, it is the metal leg, and Gale doubles over slightly. "Stop!" I lurch forward when Peeta prepares to go at him, managing to wrap an arm around his shoulders, only to hear, "Finnick!" from Peeta and to be pried away by said person.

_What? _"You're supposed to be on my side," I hiss at Finnick, struggling with him. He lets me go after dragging me some distance away; Peeta and Gale are on the ground, Gale hits Peeta in the face twice, before Peeta locks his fingers around his throat, rolling, shoving Gale's face into the mud – Boggs and our trainers are quick to tackle both and separate them. Gale is spitting out grass and there is blood welling from Peeta's lip. They both look to me, each expecting me to come to one of them.

But even if this were a real fight, I wouldn't have. I wouldn't want either of them to feel smug or victorious. What they did was stupid and pointless. "How much do you think Snow is going to laugh when he hears we can't even focus on the war long enough, not to fight with each other?" I call out at them, exasperatedly, disgustedly, and I turn away from both, toward Finnick, who is glowering at the two.

Both of them get a good chastening from Boggs. They're ordered to clean themselves up and report back later today, then a solider escorts them away, to make sure they don't have another go at it when they're out of sight.


	17. Chapter Seventeen

A/N: Nothing to say.

* * *

Chapter Seventeen

I see now what I'd not known before. What had made hands flutter in aggravation within war sessions. What had gone through Gale like mountain wind, frustrated and bitter, at his defeat. What had pierced a heart as bleached as marble inside Coin's chest.

It is spirit.

District 10 is not a force that wants to be meddled with.

Our soldiers are admittedly passionate, but the men that patrol the make-shift wall about District 10 mean business. They will shoot without warning; they do not care who you are or why you've come. Capitol, rebel, District 13 citizen, friendly solider... none of that matters. There is no way in and no way out. Which makes Violet's orders to present myself as their Mockingjay and negotiate some sort of alliance a distant and impossible dream. They don't want me. I took two steps toward their flank, all dressed in Mockingjay finery with my bow and my make-up and they pointed the barrels of their guns at my chest.

Peeta came with me the second try. Then Finnick. There is nothing but hostility in the guards' eyes.

"We'll figure something out," Boggs promises on the fourth retreat.

"Soon," I say. _Soon so I can go find my son. So I can be where I should be._

The chill of the days pass slow. Our star squad is little more than Peeta, Finnick, Boggs, a camera man, a director, and myself. Boggs says that Coin – his voice grows darker when he mentions the recently revealed 'murdered by the Capitol' President of District 13 – had come to District 3 with a handful more soldiers to add to our team, but they must have died in 'the hovercraft crash' as well.

Gale is back in District 12, doing something, helping Madge. Saving more lives in that desolate district, again. Whenever I think of him, I get a dull ache in my side, miss him in someway. What if he dies out there in his efforts? What if I do? Have our paths really diverged so much that we won't die going for and doing the same thing? I sigh, clutch the pain and lean over to glower at the sluggish shape of District 10 on the horizon.

When we first arrived it mystified me that we had not yet taken a hold of this poor district. A hovercraft took us to the edge of the large, wide-spread district and we walked for miles across slushy grass land where once cows and sheep wandered aimless. Men and women who once were breeders, milkers, butchers, and harmless ranchers now take on the pretense of soldiers. Children can be seen beyond the make-shift wall of stacked supplies, the ripped apart re-weaved mental gate that once was electric and belonged to the Capitol, and they are always carrying one thing to another place. Mud hiked up to knees. Clothes nothing more than rags.

District 10 holds, but they are certainly weakening...

...in the sense of clothes and bullets and medicine.

What they aren't lacking is spirit.

You would think a district who has been bullied by both sides for months on end would collapse already. They would forget why they stand out under the endless stars and through the frosted dawns without moving the point of their guns from the distant enemy. An enemy that is ominous and larger and more powerful. Why haven't they given in? Why is it that I can still see hope in their faces every time my companions and I back away?

What is it they are hoping for, if they do not wish to join the rebels and rid themselves of the Capitol?

I think over this question while the others trouble themselves over getting inside the central hub. We could overpower them, now, with all the troops that have been marched out at Violet's order, but she insists we want allies of them. If word got out that we slaughtered a district that defied the Capitol it would certainly not look well for her. Considering how hard she is working to pull strings in District 13 and win them over. Her orders are to make peace, make common cause.

_So what is their cause?_I wonder, miffed. _How can it not be to destroy the Capitol and to kill Snow? _

Peeta doesn't have much to say on the matter. Neither to me or to Boggs and the others. Everyday he urges another outing to the gates, all dressed up, the camera in the distance ready to capture an inspirational moment (but since Coin's death, Violet has not enforced any taping of me whatsoever). He is always the one to smile and wave at the soldiers. They scowl. I scowl. I'm the one to pull Peeta back to safety by the hand.

Every night he goes to bed looking thoughtful, and he pulls me close in our rugged tent, presses lips to my jaw. He does this every night, after the sun has gone down. The dusk turns to dark quickly this time of year and the moon rises, dropping silver light on the bustle of camp is.

My thoughts are usually too sad for sleep. I climb a around the mess that is camp, wrapped in blanket, walk passed others who walk the opposite way as me, who glance my way but merely press their lips together. Stone rings the outside of the town that all of the remaining population of District 10 has decided to hole up in. Honestly, it is a big town, probably their largest. At least two thousand live beyond the ugly wall, well spread. From where I stand, I can see the distant lights. Smoke rises heavy from somewhere deep within. The gray line slithering over the moon makes me shudder, remembering the day of my escape.

The gate is guarded. Soldiers see me, stare, stop and raise a gun. I'm too far away to be shot, but I want to shout out. To ask. _Why? Have I wronged you? _Do they know they are the reason I'm not at this very moment holding my son, or at least fighting to have it that way?

I stand and stare back.

Eventually, Finnick finds me, and he joins me in my silent vigil. "Share," he says and stoops to pull the blanket around his own, broader shoulders. Once his spine starts to ache, he coaxes me to sit on the ground, crossing our legs. Still. Very still.

"Johanna would have been shot by now," Finnick comments the fifth night.

"Probably. It's a good thing she did not pass her test."

"She never was one for evaluations."

Before dawn, we pick ourselves up and find our tents. I fall beside Peeta and he bleary pulls be to him, without thought, uncaring of the way I initially stiffen. He is used to it. Used to me. And when I turn into his chest and find the smell of his neck familiar the way the forest smells, I know I'm used to him, too.

The sixth day is the sixth try. I can see them growing thinner. They fired a shot near Finnick's leg, purposely missing. A warning for us not to come back or next time, they _will_ kill the faces of the rebellion. I believed that, this promise. So does Boggs and the paler faced Finnick when we arrive back to the others. Peeta does not.

"I think we should try again," he says, when I make to drop my bow. He grabs my shoulder and his eyes flicker around to the others. "Once more today."

"That would be suicide," Boggs says. "No. I call Violet and talk out a new plan. Peace isn't working."

Peeta glances over his shoulder at the district. "Once more," he insists, weaker.

"No," I say, finally, pushing away his hand. "This is a waste of time anyway. We have better things to do." I shove my bow back in its box and the director rushes forward with a cloth to wipe my face clear of the mask.

Peeta never turns back. "Okay."

"Okay."

Boggs goes off to the nearest tent and I can hear him make his call. Finnick whistles as he absently plays with a tie of string on his pants. My thoughts go unbidden to impatience and sadness and restlessness. I want the suit off. It's heavier than the Capitol Mockingjay's suit was, but that makes it somehow suffocating and worse. The cameraman offers his nearby tent for changing; I use it gratefully, tossing the suit into place by the bow when I reemerge.

Hungry, I mean to suggest the others join me to eat. Except all I find is Finnick, invested in the knot he is tying. I nudge his boot, while peering in Boggs' tent to see if he'd gone to argue. "Where's Peeta?"

"Uh." Finnick looks up, around, peers into camp behind his back. He is just shrugging when he turns back to me, and stills, his eyes focused behind my shoulder. "Found him."

I turn also, at the sound of a guard's shout.

"Hold! No further! We'll shoot!"

Peeta stops short of the wall some twenty feet. His hands are up in surrender. I move instantly to join him, but Finnick grabs my elbow and keeps me in place. _You'll make it worse. _"I don't mean any harm. Just want to talk," Peeta replies.

Boggs' curse sounds somewhere to my right.

"We don't need your words. Go back or we'll shoot!"

A second guard wanders next to the first and he glares brutally at Peeta. "I'll shoot." The gun is raised, cocked, positioned. I lurch, and there is suddenly another hand on my other elbow, Boggs' weight against mine. "Five.." counts the second. "Four.. three.."

"Peeta!" I cry. "You idiot. Listen to them!"

He waves me away. He's never done that to me before.

"I have.." Peeta pauses, considers. "I was sent here, with a body. Mr. March. Frier March."

Guard one turns to guard two. They meet raised eyebrows and both their guns falter. "How do you know that name?" calls the second, still hostile.

"I told you. I was sent with his body and was told he was to be buried here."

"You? Someone sent _you_ with Frier?" calls the first, blatantly surprised.

"Yes."

I see out the corner of my eye that Boggs is shaking his head. The two guards share another look, step forward, and motion with their eyes for Peeta to approach. Something tightens in my stomach, my chest, my throat. He stands right next to them; they are speaking too quiet to hear. One laughs. Guard one escorts Peeta passed the gate, _into_ District 10. Guard two straightens once more, gun pointed at us.

I take a step forward, harshly ripping myself from Finnick and Boggs. "Me, too," I say. "I'm with him!"

"No." Guard two fires three shots, each one cracking in nearby places around my body. I recoil on all sides and twist, still moving forward. Finnick lurches and drags me back. "No one gets in!"

"But –!"

Boggs silences me. We all retreat to his tent and slump into various places. I don't sit. I stand, rigid, arms hugging my stomach. Eyes on the tent flap. "We can't just let him go," I say.

"We have to," Boggs is sure. "This was his choice.. I didn't even think of that body.." Again, he is shaking his head.

"But they'll kill him," I say, the images right there in my head. "They'll surround him in there."

Finnick glances my way. "It'll be fine. They'll let him go. They would have just killed him outside the gate if they had any intention to do it at all. Why get blood all over the place they live? He's safer inside."

Hours pass. I can't tear myself away from the stones to do anything. Finnick brings me food. The cameraman films me and it irritates me, but not enough to break my focus. I'm listening for gunfire. Watching the guards and seeing if they will says anything about our man on the inside.

At noon I give up. I start demanding to see Peeta. From Boggs to the guards. "How do we know he's even still alive?" I ask, more than once. "I want proof!" The guards don't listen. Not until I lift my bow in one fluid moment, aim an explosive arrow at their faces and eyes and their precious pathetic wall. "I want proof!" I demand.

One of them disappears inside.

Three hours later, they return. Without Peeta. I raise my bow once more. It is them this time who lift surrendering hands. "We have your proof!" cries the one. "Lower your weapon!"

I narrow my eyes. Finnick rests a hand on my bicep. I take a step closer to the district. "Show me!"

"Nothing to show!" The guard holds two palms up to the sky, proof. "Only words!"

"That's not enough," I hiss, more than shout. They understand by the way I ready to release.

"Hold! Peeta says one thing, will you not hear it?"

I falter. "What?"

"Vincent." My bow lowers to the stones. _Yes. That's proof enough. _"Tell him that I want him to come back. Right now. Tell him that if he doesn't come back.." I don't finish. I simply toss aside my bow and stomp away and eat a late lunch. Finnick and Boggs and whoever else heard the one word do not mention or question it; they probably have no idea what it means, but wouldn't risk asking me in my dreadful mood.

I scowl at everything. Mostly the district. I ask Boggs to do something, to be ready for something, anything. He refuses. He has faith in whatever it is Peeta's doing in there. Others, too. Most of them. They're smiling at the way Peeta went straight through those gates in only a few sentences. Are proud, happy, glad. Perhaps, District 10 will be ours in a night.

I don't believe that. No one listens to me. They all hush me and put me off for a fretting lover. Don't care to hear what I say or share or purpose. It is the Capitol again, being pushed aside. I begin to label them Haymitch's. Not real friends, but people who will risk Peeta for the great good. In my books, that's not acceptable. Risk me. Not him. Rick me. Not my son. Risk me. Not my sister.

They have a different want in District 10 than us. I wonder about it again, wander back to the stones. I sit and watch the guards again. Boggs comes around to drape apologetic blankets over mine and Finnick's shoulders. Finnick abandons his after awhile and shrugs under mine; it's warmer, reassuring in the night, when shadows and darkness make you think of an arena far underneath the ground.

At moonhigh, I see the fire again.

I stare at it, wavering, a distant glow of orange.

I think of myself; the Girl on Fire. Which makes me think of Cinna, left behind in District 3. Cinna, who was with me during my worst in the white cell. White cell, brings Leon blindingly to the surface. I wonder if he's made it to District 12 yet. If Gale and Madge have come across him and his son. I shiver. I close my eyes and know that to be warm my father's hunting jacket is back in mine and Peeta's tent.

I fling my eyes back open.

_A friend._

I could use a friend in this camp of Haymitch's.

I run to retrieve the jacket. Clattering through mud and grass and tripping over tents in the way, I seek the little curl of white paper I know will be in the left pocket of my father's coat. I fling myself to my knees, expecting to struggle with the clothing to get it out of the pack. But it comes in one tug.

My hand shoves into the pocket, fingers pulling free the note.

It is the same as I remember; _a friend._

I return to Boggs' tent. I ask for the phone and he gives it up reluctantly. I dial, fumbling a little, and I press the device to my ear. I turn to watch the distant fire again, listening to the ring.

Once, twice... "Hello?"

And I freeze.

"Hello? Who is this? How did you get this number?"

A half remembered sharp stab awakens in my thigh, the floor embracing me, and the smell of lavender swelling in my nose, overcoming the junk food of the restaurant. "Leon?" asks the voice. "Is that you?"

The ghost of a warm hand presses into my cheek. _"She'll recover soon enough, just give the antidote some time," says a whispering female voice close to my side. "Do me a favor and call Plutarch."_

"Who is this?" I ask ruggedly, cautious.

An infinite pause on the other side of the line lets me know they weren't expecting my voice.

"_Who was that woman?"_

_"A friend," Leon says numbly. "She's a friend."_

"Katniss.." says the woman. I bite into the side of me cheek. There is a sigh, long and drawn out and tired. So very, very tired. "It is about time we met, isn't it? Properly introduced, I suppose. Tell me, did Leon tell you to call this number in order to get Peeta back?"

No. How does she know? How can she know I don't have Peeta, but not know that Leon had left me months ago? "Who are you?" I ask again, harder.

"My name isn't really important," she says. "Not anymore."

"That's not an answer."

"Rose. That's the name my mother gave me. Snow, is the name my husband gave me. But I like to be called Mrs. March, the name I earned for myself. Call me which you would like. But tell me, do you have the body of my step-son or not? Peeta says Frier was sent to you by my dearest Coriolanus."

Out of everything said, I grasp one, "You're in District Ten?"

"Where else? This is where Grier lived. Where the man I loved was born and lived to be The Victor. I might have grown up in the Capitol and I briefly visited for your sake, but this is where I belong." A pause, I gather my head. "You never told me. Do you have Frier's body?"

"Yes. In District Three. It'll take hours to get here after we call. Send Peeta out now, and I'll make sure it gets to you..." and I wait, wait for the wheels to turn, for me to grasp the pieces she has just lain in front of me.

Rose. Snow. March. _Have you ever seen it Snow in March?_

Suddenly, it clicks. "You're President Snow's wife."

"Was. I was his."

"Until.."

"Until I bore him an illegitimate daughter, he killed my lover, and I found peace in this district. Don't ask me for a life story, it is too long and too weary, especially at this hour. Peeta is sleeping underneath my roof tonight. We will meet you at the gates tomorrow, ten o'clock. Have Frier. Yes?"

I don't answer that. "Why? Why is District Ten turning rebels out? Are you behind that?"

There is only the long, high-pitched dial-tone for an answer.


	18. Chapter Eighteen

A/N: Yay? New chapter. Really short. You guys deserve better, I'm sorry. If anyone is interested, there is actually a story for Rose; ask me to post it and I will. Thanks for reading. Sorry for typos. Reviews are love. Such slow progression... argh. I'm so sorry. But there are answers in this chapter! Lots. _Or are they?_ Hm. -Taryn

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Chapter Eighteen

I don't know what I was expecting when I entered District 10. Definitely not a welcome; I was in no mood to smile and put on my Mockingjay suit. I came as myself, as Katniss Everdeen – and she is not like the girl from District 12, she is half a mother, half an adult, half about ready to ignore Violet's orders and take District 10 by force. Boggs is there to halt any unwelcome entrance. He escorts me, keeps me well in line, and safe.

It takes three soldiers to carry the nailed wooden coffin that contains the bones of a man once named Frier March. Each hobbling a little over the slick and frosted streets of mud that run from the gate of District 10 toward the cobbled town square. Leading us there are two soldiers. They seem uncertain,yet, _relieved_. One smiles at me; a small fluttering thing.

There are no citizens outside, only those with guns. All the rest are hiding. Which throws aside any good hopes.

Six distinctive shapes appear in the distance; one of them stocky and blonde. I begin to pick up pace, but remind myself to be calm and collected at the last moment. I breathe slow and Finnick's hand grips my forearm momentarily for reassurance. One step after another we arrive; there is a small square awaiting us this morning, half ruined, most of the gray stones misplaced and removed, and a large fire pit in the middle of it all. Peeta is standing just next to that, and next to him, is a woman that I immediately write off as Mrs. March.

She is in her late years, but younger than President Snow. Hair white, twisted neatly to the side of her face, blue eyes that sting like ice, and a thin, short form that looks miniature next to Peeta. Mrs. March does not smile, but there are laugh lines around her eyes, and, after the shift of her arm, I notice the tattoos of swirling gray designs spreading along her fingers, hands, up her arms and over her shoulders. Once, those might have been appealing, or considered beautiful by the Capitol, but that was many years ago and now the tattoos are faded in her pale, aged skin, and more silly than pretty.

But there is nothing silly about the bundle of blankets in Peeta's arms.

I stop short of them by at least ten feet. Neither move to greet me; Rose is cool and Peeta is grinning. I blink for a few moments – waiting for someone to begin this strange gathering – but it is Finnick who nudges my side, and I force a breath into my lungs…

And Boggs is the one to step forward, gesturing to the coffin. "Frier March, as promised."

"Peeta Mellark," Rose said, and her hand touches him briefly on the shoulder. "As promised. Whole."

"And.." I say, eyes flickering to the blankets.

Rose stares evenly at me, then gestures for her armed men around us to come forward and take Frier. They collect the coffin and disappear into a building to the side of the square. I move closer to Peeta, in case she thinks to back out of the deal after taking what she wants. "Katniss.." Peeta begins.

"Later," Rose tells him, coolly. Then she turns to Boggs. "I'm willing to represent District Ten. We will accept your peace. But I will not allow you to recruit any of these people. They are loyal to their families and their farms not to your guns and your wars. They won't pledge themselves to die for strangers. You understand this?"

"This rebellion _is_ about them, for them," I say, objecting. What she implied was that they were caught in some selfish crossfire they had no intentions of ever seeing."This is their rebellion, too. Not just ours."

"Those who wanted to fight for the rebellion can be found further out in the fields. You'll see that their graves have been turned to mush from last week's rain. The wolves keep digging them up, as well." She speak without expression, in such a coached and passionless way that I merely look to Peeta for some indication if she can be trusted. I know _I_ dislike her, on principal, but he might not mind her. He might know more than I do.

The infant in his arm mewls. Peeta shifts and coos at it and bounces a forearm lightly.

I reach out for them, curious, cautious. Rose steps between us.

"Later," she says, again.

Peeta catches my gaze from behind her. "Are you mad?" he asks. "That I went to the gates anyway, when you said otherwise?"

"Yes," I say. Rose laughs, so suddenly, so girlishly for her composure, that I lean away. "What?" I snap.

"Nothing. Just that Coriolanus must really despise you. I wore my hair in a braid at our wedding, you know, he must remember that every time he sees you. Oh, I hope." Spite is dripping from her words. "He is angry at me, even now." She turns around, takes the infant from Peeta, and then offers it to me. "A gift, from me and my daughter, Cori. You met her, she said."

"I did," I say. Uncertainly, I allow her to settle the blankets into my arms; the weight is barely more than a game bag with a squirrel inside. I shift uncomfortably, not sure how to hold the child properly, but Rose's hands glide one of mine to the head. I'm sure that Finnick and Boggs behind me are trying not to laugh at my hunched pose.

I don't dare to hope. I don't move to shift the blankets away from its face. All I feel in the warmth that spreads over my chest where the baby touches me. "Cori," I say, raising my eyes to the woman.. "she isn't Snow's daughter?" I remember our phone call the other day. _Illegitimate daughter._

"No. She is mine and Grier's. Born on the eve of the Thirty-first Hunger Games. Coriolanus took her from me a few years after he killed Grier for treason." I raise my eyebrows and Rose's face is a tried grimace. "Yes," she answers an unspoken question, "our marriage was always a game of murder. But we played a good husband and wife for the public, and Cori was presented as ours."

"You called Frier your step-son.."

"Not truly. He is a great-great-grandson. But I called him a son. Truthfully, I have not seen him since he was quite young. The Capitol is not a place I frequent. Except for when I came for you. Forgive me, again, for that," she turns to Peeta, addressing him, "you weren't meant to be there, and my granddaughter is more Snow than March."

"Granddaughter?" Cori spoke to me of her own daughter over the lunch we shared. I shift the bundle in my arms to pull it in closer and the infants smells of formula and a faint sweet scent I can't name. I look to Peeta; he is still smiling, and I wonder if his face will begin to ache soon.

"Kori, my granddaughter," Rose explains, bitterly. "She is loyal to Coriolanus to the last straw. He couldn't convert me to his will, nor my daughter, but his granddaughter was never allowed near her own mother, nor me, and she went straight to Coriolanus when we tried to safely pull her from the mansion. That is why he got away. He should have died that day." And underneath her words, I hear; _I wanted him dead._

Carefully, I drum a few fingers along the infants back. It squirms and my stomach twists. "Who is this?" I ask, indicating with a chin toward the bundle in my arms.

Peeta moves as though to join me by my side, but Rose puts a hand in front of him, to stall him.

"That is my great-granddaughter."

"Look at her," Peeta says, quickly, as though afraid Rose will shut him up. "Just look."

And I do. Purple little face, so young and small, with cheekbones too fine and sharp, fuzz of dark hair, bowed lips, and her wide blinking blue eyes that seem curious and startlingly _alert. _"Why.." _Why am I holding her? _"I thought you said your granddaughter didn't leave with you and Cori when you tried to get her safety out of the mansion. That Kori tipped off Snow and that's why the plans went astray.. so why do you have her daughter?"

"It is a long story."

"I can hear it."

"She knows about our son," Peeta inputs, struggling to get words in.

"Yes," Rose says, when my eyes fling to her. "Come, sit." Moving toward the benches arranged around the fire pit, I make to hand the infant back to Rose, but she shakes her head and refuses to hold the child. Peeta slips it from my arms eagerly; I can not understand why he is so happy about this child, _it is not ours_.

A long, drawn out sigh escapes from Rose's lips. "Okay. The day of the rescue mission. I have never seen such a horrible mess before. Snow must be pulling his hair out over it." Just that breath of change to satisfaction in her voice is noticeable to me; "He's always hated messes."

I chill, because I realize, that I'm about to get answers I've been searching for, for months. I am looking at a woman who knows Snow.. for how long.. how personally? Who calls him by his first name and was married to the hateful snake of a man for.. _how long_? _"..born on the eve of the Thirty-first Hunger Games.." _There is a world of story behind this one person, especially in concerns of the man I have vowed to kill. But, it makes sense, that she had an affair – it must have humiliated Snow. Which brings me back to their peculiar phrase; Have you ever seen it Snow in March? I open my mouth and ask her about it now, right then. It had such a profound impact on my torture sessions that I had to know.

I lost two people to that phrase; it would be unfair for me not to find out what it really meant.

At the mention of the phrase, Rose's face cracks into a smile. "In my youth, people generally answered the riddle as this: 'Doesn't matter, Roses grow year round.' But truthfully, the phrase was more of an endearment. At least, for Grier it was. He was a strange sort of man." The man's name causes a haunted look to overcome her expression, momentarily, before she shakes herself. "I met him on my wedding day, in March, you know. I was terrified. Got married two months after I turned eighteen. Coriolanus corralled me into it. Threatened and hedged and blackmailed me until I gave in." She turns to me and is smiling ruefully. "I was _stupid_, then."

As strange it is to hear of Snow's past, I dive toward: "And the rescue mission?"

"Yes." Rose gazes thoughtfully at the designs on the back of her hands. "Leon was my man. Cori was on my side. Then there was me, myself, in the Capitol. Only the three of us, compared to District Thirteen's men on the inside, disguised as Avoxes and Peacekeepers. The only people District Three had was, to their knowledge, Leon, and Violet's older brother. I knew nothing of this when I arranged your escape. To me, there was only District Three and myself. Not Thirteen. If I knew.. I would not have had Cori plant those explosives.."

"Why do it at all? Help me?" I ask, truly curious. "I do not know you. I didn't even know you existed."

"There are a lot of reasons," she admits. "Mostly because I am old and dying soon and Coriolanus tends to forget me. Mucking up his life has ever been my job. So I had Cori set the mines. Leon arranged everything where you were concerned – he was the one to convince me to spare you of my plans. For his son or because he felt responsible, that's for you to ask him. I came to the Capitol to aid them once they got you out into the streets; I have friends there, still. Leon and I had you in the restaurant, before he swept you out. He was supposed to rendezvous with me ten blocks away in an old apartment."

"But I fought him," I say, remembering him saying something about an apartment.

"You fought him and escaped him, yes. But you weren't supposed to be so close to the explosion when it happened. The mines were set off prematurely. As I've said, my great-granddaughter, Kori, resisted Cori when she tried to pull her from the mansion and to the rendezvous point. Kori ran to Coriolanus and told him about the mines, about me, about you. He evacuated immediately. The mines went off just minutes too late."

"What then?"

"One of Coriolanus' men had caught you initially, knocking you out. Cori was there, left behind after Kori was taken away with Snow, and Cori was quick to wrestle you away from the Peacekeeper. But she was desperate not for your benefit. Snow had her daughter and she knows Coriolanus as well as I do." Rose turns her head, regarding the distant livestock fields. "I regret to tell you that it was Cori who cut you open and took your child. She meant to trade your child for her own. Unfortunately, or.. fortunately, for you, I suppose, before Cori could make the trade, leaving you for dead, Violet's brother came upon the scene. He shot her, hauled you somewhere to be healed and brought the child to Violet. From there, strings were pulled, deals struck, and all of the prisoners were returned to District Three and Thirteen in trade for the infant." A shuddering, broken breath. "My daughter is dead. My granddaughter is still in Snow's hands and your son is there as well." Rose turns to me, nods to the infant in Peeta's arms. "That is your key."

"My key to what?"

"To Kori. That is her daughter you look upon; I took her myself. When I heard what Cori had done.. well I could not just flee the Capitol without leverage to use. I know these games Coriolanus plays. I took her, because I know Kori loves her baby. Right now, she is stuck nursing your son. She does not want your baby, she wants her own.. and I.. now you, have it. Coriolanus won't trade out the infants, but Kori will, if I know her. She is but a girl, really. A year or two older than you. But Capitol raised, and pampered by Coriolanus, and _horribly_ foolish."

Suddenly, I understand why Peeta adores the thing so much. _Our key?_

"Why?" I ask again. "Why do you care?"

"I told you." Rose's smile cuts. "Coriolanus and I have always shared a marriage full of deceit."

"Is that why District Ten doesn't act?"

"District Ten has always been my place of refugee. The people know who I am, have known for sometime. Some even believe I still have power, think I have some advantage that they can hope in. Believe I can help protect them." Rose once more examines the tattoos across the back of her hands. "Really, I'm not sure that's true... will you do something for me?"

I glance to Peeta, to Boggs, to Finnick. "What?" I ask the woman.

"When you kill Snow, make sure he knows how deep I was in this mess. Tell him you met me. Tell him I told you everything I know. Talk of his sisters, Larentia and Dorianna. Tell him he will never live up to Alexander, _ever_." There is a fever in her eyes, suddenly. "That will kill him more than anything. He always hated his older brother." But her face becomes serious for a moment, after that statement, and she looks at me, really looks and _sees_ me. "Be careful, though, Katniss," she warns. "Call him Alexander and Coriolanus will likely forget himself and kill you no matter who you are. His family may all be dead now, but they are bitter in his memory and the Snow family was ever a pit of snakes biting each other's heads off, each waiting for their father to die."

Siblings. Snow had siblings. I think of Primrose. "How did he win?" I wonder. "If they were all competing."

"Poison," Finnick supplies quietly.

Rose's voice is sharp, open, unrelenting. "Yes, and no. I helped him, some," she admitted freely. "I killed his sisters for him, and then their children when they threatened us. Him, with presidency. Me, with my scandalous affairs. Coriolanus killed Alexander before I even knew him. The father was dying already, so he waited that out, killing off any competition that got in the way." Then, she stands, casts the infant one long look, sighs, and says, "Don't forget to tell him everything I said." And she turns to leave, taking with her all the appalling knowledge a wife to Coriolanus Snow can only know.


End file.
